9 Tips for Working in Community Relations in Sports
Community outreach is a crucial piece of running a sports and entertainment organization. If you don’t have a longstanding connection with the community around your team, how do you expect fans to support anything revolving around your building?
One sports outreach effort that comes to mind is the NHL’s Hockey Fights Cancer initiative. It could have easily been relegated to one night per year, but it’s grown so much further than that: ‘I Fight For’ signs for fans to wave at games; Hockey Fights Cancer jerseys; fundraising for youth hockey teams through HFC Assist; partnering with the American and Canadian Cancer Societies.
That’s what’s on display on the outside, but what goes on inside of Community Relations (CR) departments? Let’s take a look at the career of Nicole Murray and see tips from an executive who’s orchestrated many community efforts. And what exactly is community outreach? It can be defined as extending services/programming to those who may not have access to them if not for the organization that sought them out.
As Director of Community Relations for the Washington Nationals. Murray has worked for the team for nearly 13 years, specifically the last 11 in CR.
Executive Tip #1: People Skills Matter
In sports and entertainment, you have to be ready to network at all times. She might not have had her best showing in her first job interview with the Nationals or got the copywriting job she initially applied for, but Murray was able to set herself apart from others at the networking events she attended because of her communication skills.
“I went to a couple of different job fairs, I think I went to two in the span of 10 days. They were being held in [Washington] D.C.,” Murray said. “And I met with several executives who gave me some really good advice. And some of them said ‘I don’t have a job for you right now, let’s talk, let’s keep in touch. And one of the pieces of advice that I got was that, even though I wanted to be in that [communications], community relations space, there’s one of those people at an organization typically. Whereas there’s 20 sales and service staff.”
Murray would then make her way into the Nationals as an Inside Sales Representative. Once she got inside, she realized many of the people she interviewed with for the copywriting role remembered her from before.
Murray had a similar experience when she made connections within MLB’s league office as the Nationals hosted the 2018 MLB All-Star game. Just 15 months later, the Nationals were winning their first World Series title in 2019. Some of the efforts the team was able to bring forth — like the Play Ball event the Nationals hosted at Fort Belvoir Army Base’s Bill Behring Field — were because of the impressions Murray made during the 2018 All-Star week.
“We had a lot of the relationships with Major League Baseball that we might not of otherwise,” Murray said. “So, again going back to those relationships, things that we wanted to do as a part of the World Series, [MLB] knew us and knew how we worked and trusted that we could do things.”
Executive Tip #2: Sales Never Fails
Sales continue to be a common denominator for those working in sports and entertainment. Murray would only be in sales for roughly a year-and-a-half but she often looks back on her experience in sales and how it’s influenced her career.
“I feel like everybody should do sales at some point in their career because the customer service piece of it, that’s going to go with you,” Murray said. “That’s a soft skill you can never work on enough.”
Murray said she approached sales a lot of the same way she does with CR now, mainly through relationship building. And that could be seen with the Nationals with their partners following the return to activity after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Executive Tip #3: Celebrate Success with the Community
The World Series was an event Murray will always look back to and she made sure to keep the organizations she’s partnered with involved in the championship run. Murray wanted them all to feel a part of the win, so some groups she reached out to included Team UP Youth Baseball and Softball and the Nationals’ Grand Slam Schools.
“I was in Houston for Game 7 and I was calling TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, Families of Fallen Military) from the field … saying ‘get your people together, we want you to walk with us in the World Series parade,’” Murray said. “And being able to have that opportunity, it meant so much to me personally and professionally. Because when you work in community outreach, you work a lot with your colleagues obviously within the organization, but I work very, very closely with external groups and external contacts. And so they’re as much a part of my programming as anybody internally. If I did not have strong relationships with people externally, I could not do much of what we do in terms of programming.”
- Executive Tip #4: Know your Market
Do your market research and know the culture of the city you plan to be working in for the foreseeable future. Part of what made Murray so capable for the Nationals’ CR department was understanding the market in D.C. Being a military spouse in the nation’s capital, she brings a level of respect to the role to do it more adequately than others.
The Nationals’ CR team has three areas of focus: military, K-12 education, and youth baseball/softball outreach. Murray considers the work she does more so as a “brand experience” by bringing the Nationals brand to different audiences
“We wanted to build up our military programming and our military outreach,” Murray said. “My job now is really more 90% military outreach … and then a little bit of everything else in terms of CR. in terms of community ticket grant programs, and the Comm.’s piece of it all and just generally community outreach.
“We have a lot of corporate partners that we are looking to connect with that might be military focused. Even if you’re not [on] active duty, there are a lot of military veterans in this space. We’re trying to grow our fan base and to do that, we need to consistently reach out to this demographic. I’ve had people come to me and say ‘this is my fourth tour as a Nationals fan because I’ve come through D.C. four times in the past 15 years … and that’s really what we’re looking for.”
Executive Tip #5: Building with the Fan Base
The connection between a team and its fan base is one very unique to sports and that is a major piece of the community outreach operation.
Murray compares extending out to other fans as a funnel; rather than only focusing on the narrow end of fans that are already on board, the department looks for ways to bring other fans into the fold on the wider end.
It’s also been about providing opportunities that may not have come about if the Nationals (or any other team) did not get involved. Like the educational programs that help kids in the area — who may not normally go to games — get to Nationals Park for the first time.
“We want to get out to where people are living, working, playing, rather than just in the ballpark,” Murray said. “And some of that is educating our external partners about what it is we can offer. It’s really easy to think about tickets or player appearances, but what we did, we tried to look beyond those things and explore other assets.”
Executive Tip #6: CR is not just Non-Profit Work
Community outreach does not solely mean charitable-based efforts. One thing Murray often says is that CR has a PR problem. What does she mean by that?
CR can often be viewed as a purely philanthropic arm for organizations. When things get tight budget-wise in organizations, that sentiment makes it easy to assume that the CR department gets put on the back burner because the work is a “nice-to-do.”
“This isn’t good done by a business, but it’s good for business,” Murray said.
Executive Tip #7: Know the CR Department and Know Yourself
Do you know what exactly your CR team does? Be sure to look at how the organizations you’re looking into operate their CR initiatives. Each team is its own, and each league is its own, so knowing the department you are looking to join is important before you step into the building.
“Who does it report to? When I first started at the Nats, community relations fell under Communications. Now it’s under Government Relations,” Murray said. “ … Does the organization combine it with their foundation, their non-profit? Is it a single-reporting structure? Because that may give you insight into how that organization views community relations and that can help you decide whether or not it’s the right fit in what you want to do.
“ … You have to know your why, you have to find your why and why you want to do it, but you can’t just do it because you like sports. That’s not enough. It’s got to be more than that, and if it’s not, then it probably isn’t the right fit.”
Executive Tip #8: Community Outreach is not about You!
As exciting as many moments can be in sports and entertainment, you have to remember you are there to do a job, so you can’t always be a fan. Murray discussed how she missed former Nationals pitcher Jordan Zimmerman’s no-hitter back in 2014 (the first in Nationals’ history). While she wishes she had that opportunity back, it signified something she’s learned about from working in sports, particularly in handling outreach efforts.
“I missed the first no-hitter in Nationals’ history because I was getting a group of kids in line for an event” Murray said. “ … And that’s OK because it’s not about me viewing those moments and seeing those moments; it’s about giving the opportunity to other people. And some people are OK missing those moments, but obviously, some people aren’t and there’s a big difference in that.”
Executive Tip #9: Community Relations holds Intangible Value
The positive results you can see from strong community outreach can be hard to judge in a tangible sense. CR may not be considered revenue generating, but it has such value, even in a revenue-based industry like sports and entertainment.
“It’s not corporate partnerships, it’s not ticket sales. In fact, I’m a ticket give-away-er,” Murray said. “But you have to look long-term. You have to look at [the] customer lifetime value and that the people that I’m giving those free tickets to or if I’m giving a jersey to military softball or youth softball … we’re building that connection with the team very early on. … We may not see the result of that immediately, but we should be able to see it and people should be able to understand that, eventually, that’s going to come back and give you some return on the business side.”
Conclusion
Community outreach should be considered the heart and soul of your sports organization. While at times this department may seem like the sizzle to the steak of the operations like ticket sales, stadium operations, or marketing, a great CR team can help pin a positive light on what your organization stands for and show how much it values its community.
CR may also be the most versatile department around. Not only from the perspective of working with outside partners, but also from a day-to-day standpoint. From content to merchandise, to sponsorships and events, to player relations and beyond, CR has a unique way of being everywhere in a sports organization all at once.
Are you thinking of coming into CR? Here are some roles available in the community relations sector of the industry right on TeamWork Online.
TeamWorkOnline.com is the leading hiring platform and talent community in sports and entertainment. Our mission is to connect talented people with the right employers.
👩💻 Visit Our Website to browse thousands of opportunities in the sports industry that are posted daily.
📣 Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, our Twitter Jobs page, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
🚀 Onward!
