Competition to commentary - making the transition

Former British No.1 Anne Keothavong recently swapped her tennis racket for a microphone as she announced her retirement and immediately joined BT Sport’s burgeoning team of expert TV commentators. 

I have known and worked with Anne for many years. She defied two horrible knee injuries (five years apart) to put together a career any athlete would be proud of. It included becoming - in 2009 - the first British woman in 16 years to break into the top 50; seven WTA Tour semi-finals and 12 straight years of representing Great Britain at Fed Cup. Along with Elena Baltacha, Anne set a successful precedent which paved the way for younger British players like Heather Watson and Laura Robson to flourish. 

As satisfying as it must be for a retiring professional athlete to have an impressive competitive CV and strong legacy, retiring at just 30 years old comes with challenges. The question of ‘what comes next?’ can hang over the last few years of an athletic career like a building thundercloud, bringing with it inherent pressures to perform before time runs out. That’s why it is important to prepare for the transition well ahead of time.

The options are there for most athletes, including coaching, sports management and public speaking, but the move into media is the most common. Those who enjoy the smoothest transition into a broadcasting career are the ones who have begun to build up their experience and contacts while they are still competing. 

We advise athletes to begin doing more media in the latter stages of their career for two reasons. Firstly, it builds their profile, engages their fans and gets them noticed. Secondly, it allows them to develop their media skills as they go along and use every interview they do as an opportunity to focus on putting some of the tips we’ve given them into practice. 

Broadcasting on TV and radio isn’t easy, however simple some of its more established commentators make it look, and there is no guarantee that an excellent sportsperson will instantly be a natural on the airwaves. I know from my own broadcasting experience that, like any other skill, it takes time to develop and build your confidence. Sue Barker, Andrew Castle, Mary Carillo, Gary Lineker are just some of the ex-athletes who have made hugely successful transitions from the field of play to studio or commentary box. I’m sure all of them of them would admit that it took time and plenty of hard work to find their voice - both literally and figuratively.

One of the keys to success is to become comfortable talking about other athletes and their performances, which is a huge part of sports media. We proactively seek out opportunities for our players to comment on events, news stories and generally establish themselves as a voice of reasoned opinion. This can also be done by tailoring the content of Twitter and Facebook to include more focus on the sport as a whole or emerging stories. 

As an athletes skills and confidence develop, we can then drive opportunities for them to be studio guests, take on guest commentary stints and do pieces to-camera. This nurturing process has to be managed around training and competition so that performance isn’t compromised. 

With the right advice and support, an athlete can then make a smooth transition from their first career to their second. 

Not for the faint-hearted - The Olympic and Paralympic Mixed Zone

An Olympic or Paralympic Mixed Zone is not a place for the faint-hearted, whether you are an interviewer, an athlete or someone whose job it is to somehow manage the series of post-competition interviews that happen there.

The Mixed Zone often looks like little more than a series of fences or unprepossessing barriers, usually located directly next to the field of play. It is often the first place an athlete goes within seconds of the biggest moments of their career. 

There, as they cope with the emotional, physical and mental aftermath of competition, sports people are introduced to a line of broadcasters and then written press. They conduct a series of interviews, each of which is timed at roughly a minute to 90 seconds. Short, sharp, raw and full of feeling, these ‘flash’ interviews can showcase athletes at their best and their worst.

Both Faye and I have been lucky enough to have spent most of this past summer in Mixed Zones at various events and witnessed first-hand many of London 2012’s most accomplished performers giving their post-event interviews. It has been fascinating to watch those who used those magical 90 seconds to enhance their reputation, engage with the global audience and grab a place in the public consciousness - and those who did not.

Double Olympic Gold medallist Laura Trott is a good example of someone who made the most of her moment in the Velodrome Mixed Zone. Given her engaging, smiling performances in those brief but important moments post- race, it’s no surprise to see Trott emerge from London 2012 as one of the country’s favourite new sports stars. Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis began the Olympics with very high profiles, but their media performances post-event certainly increased the impact of their impressive achievements on the field of play.

Others used their Mixed Zone moments less wisely. Every athlete that marched through without stopping (often, sadly, on the basis of poor advice from team members, coaches and even press attaches) missed an opportunity to connect with fans and potential sponsors. As they return to the real post-London 2012 world of reduced sports funding and the ever-more difficult search for sponsorship, they may regret rushing to chat to their family or coach when they could have spared a few moments en route to get some invaluable media exposure for themselves and their sport.

Oscar Pistorious came into the Paralympics as a much- loved and hugely respected athlete but he may regret denting his reputation with comments made in the Mixed Zone after he suffered a shock to defeat to Brazil’s Alain Oliviera in the T44 200-metre sprint. At the time, Pistorious possibly felt entirely justified in suggesting that Oliviera’s blades were of an unfair length (though the International Paralympic Committee refuted his claim) but he felt moved to apologise afterwards. Apology or not, those comments, made while he was still catching his breath and digesting defeat, could follow Pistorious for years to come.

As anyone familiar with The Emilia Group’s work will know, we are big advocates of preparing athletes for every different media scenario they might expect to face. Using our experiences from this summer and other major events we have worked, we are now putting together a series of workshops designed to help sportspeople understand how a Mixed Zone works and how to make the most of those important 90-second snatches of air-time. Elite sport - and you don’t get much more elite than the Olympics and Paralympics - is all about taking opportunities and for smart athletes, the Mixed Zone is full of those.

Playing the social tennis game

Tennis isn't the only sport we work in but it certainly keeps us busy. Few sports are as genuinely global, boast as many recognisable personalities, are played as consistently throughout the year or have as many major competitions in the course of a season.

The four Grand Slams and team formats like Davis Cup and Fed Cup create peaks in interest around the ongoing ITF Pro-Circuit, the WTA and the ATP Tours, while wheelchair tennis and the ITF Junior circuit take the sport to different interest groups and across a wide age-range. To add to all this excitement are stand-alone events like the Boodles, which is held every June as a taster tournament for Wimbledon and for which The Emilia Group provides media and social media management.

We also manage media and sponsorship for Britain's No.1 tennis player Elena Baltacha, who has a busy year ahead not just with a full schedule of international events but with a likely spot representing tennis at the Olympic Games. Elena is very active in social media and enjoys interacting and engaging with tennis fans via Twitter and Facebook, something that we help her manage with strategic advice and hands-on help.

Facebook and Twitter both enjoy a natural synergy with tennis because a global sport needs a global platform. Tennis has strong visuals, which is great for Facebook as well as You Tube, recognisable stars and manages to combine hard-core athletic prowess with grace and elegance - plus it helps that tournaments are generally played in glamorous locations.

Twitter, meanwhile, is a wonderful platform for athletes to showcase their personalities and engage with fans in a way which feels intimate for fans but safe and controllable for the sportsperson. Tennis players in the past were often criticised for being robotic and characterless but nobody who has read Caroline Wozniacki teasing boyfriend Rory McIlroy via Twitter or seen Novak Djokovic tweeting pictures of his dog Pierre could legitimately agree. Tennis fans feel closer their heroes than ever before thanks to Twitter, which has a positive commercial impact for sponsors who choose to activate player product endorsements through social media.

It's not just players and sponsors who can benefit but all sorts of tennis brands. Our client the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the governing body for the world game, understands the synergy between tennis and social media and has brought us in to support its communications team when it comes to delivering effective engagement through Twitter and Facebook. We manage the social media platforums for international team competitions Davis Cup and Fed Cup (as well as ITF Pro Circuit and the ITF Juniors Facebook pages) and recently completed back-to-back weekends making sure that each tie, play-off and player was talked about and promoted via social media platforms.

Social media may be far more economical to resource than other PR or promotional activities but it asks you to pay for it in time, by demanding constant attention and consistent updating and reaction - hence the need in this case to bring in specialist help. In a competition like Davis Cup, which has 64 countries competing and 24 zonal ties happening in one weekend, keeping up with the flow of information and news can be quite a challenge.

It means long hours, working in shifts and managing your time with care but most importantly, staying true to your strategy for promoting the brand through social media. It's easy to lose sight of that - in the race to be reactive, we had to stay focused on being pro-active as well. It was worth the effort, for both competitions enjoyed healthy growth through social media and we expect that trend to continue, with huge potential for growth. After all, we have seen enough to say with some certainty that tennis and social media really are the perfect match.