This isn’t another online effort to try to guess as to why Dave Dombrowski is no longer the President, CEO and General Manager of the Detroit Tigers. But the fact that the “how” of that move by the team’s owner is getting so much attention is yet another example of why, especially in this era of analysis, PR matters.
Rather, this is an effort to explain why Dombrowski should have a spot on your PR All-Star team. It’s not because of his outstanding media relationships. In fact, many sports journalists have described him as guarded or even aloof. It’s because he is the master of something, in our extensive experience in training executives to talk to the media, that is often the toughest fundamental of all. He skillfully uses the media as a conduit to his audience.
Dombrowski only has talked to the media sparingly in recent years. He seems to know that when he talks, his words most certainly will be reported, if not over magnified a la Alan Greenspan, by baseball writers and broadcasters over multiple platforms. He knows his words will reach their intended audiences relatively unfiltered because of the relative rarity of his quotes. During the Winter Meetings and other portions of “free agency season,” Dombrowki’s audience is agents the represent the players. He talks about his plans, or lack thereof, to give himself maximum leverage. During the trading season, his audience is other general managers. His carefully chosen words are designed to tilt possible trading partners in his direction. Today, when he wisely returned journalists’ calls and participated in one-on-one interviews, rather than a spectacle press conference, his audience was owners who may think about hiring him. He was careful not to disparage the Tigers and left himself wide open for consideration.
We explain to clients that the purpose of PR is to use communications to support your business objectives. There is nobody in sports who seems to naturally understand and capitalize on that than Dave Dombrowski. Other business executives should take note of how this professional uses that quality to stay on the top of his game.