PR Crisis of New Balance 18-11-2016

New Balance is one of the most famous global sports company in the world. It has different kinds of sports events that has held and have a lot of sports promotions. New Balance like others major sports global companies such as Nike and Adidas, has different businesses in the world, which include factories that provide sports shoes and other products. However, though having promotions of the products and services, New Balance needs to manage their PR with tactics and be aware of different people from different communities, such as race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and disabilities. 

According to Bloomberg, after the New Balance Atlantic Inc. made a statement that they support United States President-elect Donald Trump's trade policy, such as opposed the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). New Balance is an opponent of TPP because they think TPP would damage the United States manufacturing, which would hurt the working class. This caused some of white supremacists declared that New Balance "official shoes of white people". Many people were angry of New Balance's statements. As a result, after the "statements" of white supremacists, the Twitter account of New Balance wrote a tweet statement on 14 November 2016, stated that "New Balance does not tolerate bigotry or hate in any form", One of our officials was recently asked to comment on a trade policy that was taken out of context. As a 110-year-old company with five factories in the U.S. and thousands of employees worldwide from all races, genders, culture, and sexual orientations, New Balance is a values-driven organization and culture that believes in humanity, integrity, community and mutual respect for people around the world. We have been and always will be committed to manufacturing in the United States.” Donald Trump made many controversial statements during his presidential campaign, some people claimed that his campaign was built by bigotry and hate, which included insult on minorities, women and Muslims. In my opinion, I think New Balance was only based on the policies, as they did not make an endorsement as a company. In this case, I think New Balance make a right decision to reject white supremacists because these "endorsements" violate the values of the company. Oppose TPP is the policy differences, but have no contrasts to bullying and bigotry. 

From this news, I think that to manage PR as a sports company, the PR need to care about different communities. Some sports companies like New Balance when making their statements and promotions need to be careful, in order to prevent that some people would use their statements to have further use. They need to manage PR well when having different situations. Sports PR is a managerial communication-based function designed to identity sport organization's key public, and foster desirable relationships between the sports organization and those public. Sports PR need to manage with media relations and community relations. They also need to care about the relations between the companies and customers when promote products and services.

References:
New Balance Twitter Account (2016). Retrieved from:
https://twitter.com/newbalance/status/798322478389035009
Bhasin, K. (2016). New Balance Created Its PR Crisis. Neo-Nazis Aren’t Helping. Bloomberg. Retrieved from: 
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-15/new-balance-created-its-pr-crisis-neo-nazis-aren-t-helping
Bhasin, K. (2016). New Balance Burned for Praising Trump’s Trade Stance. Bloomberg. Retrieved from: 
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-15/new-balance-created-its-pr-crisis-neo-nazis-aren-t-helping
Germano, S. (2016). New Balance Faces Social Media Backlash After Welcoming Trump. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-balance-faces-social-media-backlash-after-welcoming-trump-1478823102