Crafting a Compelling Narrative: Lessons from Corporate Communication in Sports
- Anne Coopman
- Apr 11
- 6 min read
While working on content at the Flemish Championship figure skating for the VLSU I got so many questions about where people could find their content, pictures, info, etc. and that at a championship that is most important for them.
The union has existed for a few years now and all skaters (in clubs) are attached to them, but few (mostly new skaters and their families) know what the federation does and where to find them. This led me to wonder where in their communication did it go wrong to where so many people don’t really know them.
When Britt Janssens visited our class of professional skills to talk about her career path and current position at Carta Mundi, something clicked. So many people think an employee for communications is an extra and unnecessary. You see this in the way people talk about majoring in communication, saying it is the easiest major cause everyone can talk. Yes everyone can talk but like my singing teacher in high school said: “Everyone can sing, but some people are really bad at it.” And since we are talking about a “luxury” or unnecessarily sector we need people who not just talk, but tell!
In this blog I want to take you through the importance of communication, especially in smaller/nice sports.
Why is communication so undervalued?
Why is it so important to focus on great communication?
How can we grow a small sport by using great storytelling?
The Role of Communication in Sports Federations
How is this communication gap created. Many smaller federations as well as big clubs miss employees with knowledge and a focus on communication. Employees with many other responsibilities take on social media, email communication, campaign communication, etc. on them as an extra. The lack of knowledge and often time lead to confusing messages, inconsistent branding, small reach, etc.
Because of this people aren’t on top of what’s happening and often miss important information. Which leads to many more problems like limited participation in events, which are very important to build the image of a federation and give a chance to inform and involve people who aren’t fully aware of the federation yet.
Another reason for the need of strong communication is the amount of different motivations within the target audience. To come back to figure skating; why do people skate? Some do it because of friends, you have to target them with fun initiatives that they can do together. People who want to do competition have to be targeted with great coaches and fun competitions, older skaters who want to come back will be more touched by the nostalgia that they feel when watching and these are only the people on the ice.
In order to define these target audiences, their motivations and how to touch these you need a full communication, branding, and marketing team. But when you have the right person with great knowledge of communication you can already take huge steps towards a better and more tailored reach.
During Britt Janssens’ talk she told us how everything starts with internal communication. Behind sport federations there’s a lot to keep in mind and being able to communicate this quickly with everyone on the inside is important. From the intern to the manager of elite sports they all must know what big things are happening and how they can talk about what.
Often federations must work under a board between this board and the employees you need an immense trust to create a smooth train of communication. You don’t always have time to check in with 5 people (who often have other day jobs) when a crisis happens. Quick communication is key when it comes to preventing, solving and communicating about crisis.
Britt told us about how communication people are shadow workers but in order to be a shadow worker you must act quick in order to avoid the gossip train in sports to start.
From Ice to Impact: Using Storytelling to Spark Growth
We already talked about all the different motivations people can have for joining and staying in a sport, so a good story varies to who you ask. But taking the idea of a good story outside of the athletes to (potential) viewers we can think about it a bit more general. A good story needs people you can relate to or support and there’s so many of those in any sport.
People love the top athletes who shine on the world stage, but the story of the little girl who falls but gets up a thousand times charms many people too. The boy who doesn’t fit in but fights to earn his place is another classic. There so many positive stories we can place all kind of athletes in to tell a story and create a story people take time to listen to.
The hardest part of pushing stories in sports in my eyes is keeping away from the negative competition where young people are unnecessarily put against each other. This can come from within but more often the problem is from media outlets outside of the sport.
Reputation Management: Crisis and Gossip in Niche Sports
I already mentioned it earlier, figure skating in Belgium (just like many other sports) is a community where everyone knows each other, making it easy for rumors to spread. Because of this clear, transparent and most of all quick communication.
When people don’t exactly know what is happening, they start speculating, speculation turn into gossip about someone and we may even end up in a crisis that could easily be avoided by providing athletes, coaches, clubs, etc. with more clear information.
Britt’s lecture told us about the reputation mattress. A proverbial air mattress filled up with good impressions, trust, etc. and every time we enter a crisis or a though situation, the mattress gets a hit and loses air. The more air was in it before the less damage we’ll have. For a small federation it isn’t easy to fill this mattress up but it’s very easy for it to go flat. By putting more effort into communication, we fill up our mattress a little more each time.
Britt told us “No communication will make a shitty situation not shitty, but make sure you communicate it the right way.” The gossip will be there be we can make sure it’s not about the people in our organization or the way we communicate.
Another way to slow down the gossip train is to tailor your communication in order to connect with all targets. An import group to create a deep connection with is the parents. Parents love gossiping on the sideline or cafeteria, this is where to find all the “tea”. But people don’t gossip about their good friends, people they have a connection with. So that’s what you want to become as a federation; their “friend”.
Stop Calling It Extra: Why Communication Is a Game-Changer
But after all this communication is still undervalued and underfinanced leaving many potentials to go to waist and in some situation maybe even leading to crisis.
Communication needs time, effort, passion and it’s not something you just take on as an extra or push to the secretary. It may be hard to see and measure sometimes, that doesn’t mean that there’re no successes with a big effect. We heard it a lot during all the different lectures about corporate communication: “In corporate communication, success is when people don’t talk about a crisis, because you already fixed it.”
Conclusion: Communication Is Not Optional, It’s Strategic
In smaller sport federations communications is still seen as an extra leading to missed opportunities and wasted potential. Many crises could be solved before they are in the media but because of a lack of resources this doesn’t happen.
Every sport has thousands of amazing stories to tell but with a lack of knowledge about who and how to communicate, we look right over these ideas.
When sports federations take the time and budget to invest in communications even the smallest sports can boom. Communications is storytelling, researching, and great strategy and when you put young passionate talents on this you don’t enter a new chapter, you open a whole new book.
How are you making a change in sports communications?
To wrap up this blog I want to thank Britt Janssens from Carta Mundi for the great tips, inspiration to work on changing the narrative surrounding communications and insides on how it is like to start communications in a company when it hasn’t existed for years. I also want to thank my teacher Annelies Nauwelaerts for providing us with all these great opportunities and interesting lectures.
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