Part of EPR's Sports PR pillar · Personal Reputation Management for Athletes · Athletes Who Will Win the Next Decade
Originally published Nov 2015. Updated October 8, 2026.
Athlete public relations is the work of managing an athlete's public story, media relationships, crisis response and brand reputation, during the career and after it. The best-run athlete brands, including LeBron James, Tom Brady and Serena Williams, treat it as an operating function. This guide defines the work, shows how each of those three runs it, and covers NIL and hiring.
What is athlete public relations?
Athlete public relations is the practice of shaping how the public, the media and sponsors understand an individual athlete. It differs from team publicity. Vault's career guide separates publicists who run a team's daily press operation from those who work for individual athletes and try to show them in a positive light, which raises their market value.
Agencies that serve athletes describe a similar menu. Empower Sports lists communications strategy, key messaging, crisis management, social content, commercial partnerships and media training. The Sports Publicist, a New York agency, lists media training, reputation management, crisis management and media relations.
What does an athlete publicist actually do?
An athlete publicist turns a playing record into a managed public identity. Based on the services agencies publish, the core work looks like this:
- Media relations: choosing which interviews, outlets and journalists fit the athlete, and saying no to the rest.
- Media training: preparing the athlete for interviews, press conferences and hostile questions.
- Crisis preparation and response: having a plan before an incident, then responding quickly and in a single voice.
- Narrative planning: deciding what the athlete wants to be known for in five and ten years, not just this season.
- Brand alignment: matching partnerships to the athlete's values and audience.
- Post-career positioning: building the second career, such as broadcasting or ownership, while the first is active.
For failures that show why this matters, see Sports PR Failures: The Athlete Crises.
LeBron James is the case study for owning the channel. His 2010 announcement, "The Decision," aired on ESPN and was, according to Bloomberg, the first major project he worked on with his business partner Maverick Carter. The backlash from Cleveland fans taught the cost of a poorly paced reveal.
What followed was a shift toward ownership. In 2020, as Built In LA reported, SpringHill raised $100 million and merged SpringHill Entertainment with the Uninterrupted brand and the Robot Company marketing agency. Uninterrupted lets athletes tell stories in their own voice. James also invested in Blaze Pizza in 2012, with partners, according to AfroTech.
The lesson: own the platform that tells your story, so you are not only reacting to other people's coverage.
Tom Brady is the case study for disciplined timing and for managing conflicts of interest. He won seven Super Bowls and retired in 2022 after 23 seasons, per AP. He then became Fox Sports' lead NFL analyst and, on October 15, 2024, NFL owners approved his purchase of a stake of about 5% in the Las Vegas Raiders.
The approval took roughly 17 months, and the league placed restrictions on him as a broadcaster in the meantime. AP reported that his dual role as analyst and potential owner was a sticking point, and ABC News reported that Brady followed the league's restrictions voluntarily. Flashscore's report of the rules says he could not attend production meetings and had no access to players, coaches or team facilities.
The lesson: when you take on a second role, pace the announcement and accept the constraints publicly before they become a story.
How did Serena Williams build a second career while playing?
Serena Williams is the case study for building the next career before the first one ends. She launched Serena Ventures in 2014, eight years before she retired in 2022, according to AfroTech. Bloomberg reported in March 2022 that the firm had raised $111 million for its first early-stage fund and already backed about 60 companies.
Her beauty brand, Wyn Beauty, launched in 2024, per AfroTech, and reached Ulta Beauty stores. The sequence shows how infrastructure built during the playing years pays out afterward.
The lesson: start the post-career business early, so the athlete's retirement announcement is a transition, not a restart.
What unites these three athletes?
All three treat public relations as a continuing operating function, not a press-conference and endorsement layer. Each owns equity in a business beyond the sport, each controls timing, and each prepared the next chapter before the last one ended. For how brands find and shortlist athletes, see how marketability and AI discovery shape endorsement decisions.
How does NIL change athlete public relations?
NIL turned college athletes into individual brands that need their own communications plan. In June 2025, Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House v. NCAA settlement, which let schools share revenue with athletes directly. Reporting by CBS Sports and others describes a first-year revenue-sharing cap of $20.5 million per school, about $2.8 billion in back damages, and a clearinghouse called NIL Go that reviews third-party NIL deals of $600 or more.
For PR, the effect is practical. Every deal now carries disclosure and review requirements, and a poorly structured deal can become a story. Rules continue to change, so check current requirements before advising an athlete. For a wider view, see EPR's sports publicity reference.
How do you hire an athlete publicist?
Hire for fit and for crisis readiness. These points are analysis, not reported facts:
- Ask which athletes or comparable public figures they have represented, and what happened in their hardest moment.
- Ask how they coordinate with the athlete's agent, lawyer and team, so the voice stays consistent.
- Ask for a written scope, reporting cadence and fee structure.
- Ask what they will do for the athlete's career after playing, not just this season.
- Check how the athlete and the publicist appear in search and AI answers, using EPR's Sports Agent Citation Share Index as a model.
An agent negotiates contracts and endorsements, while a publicist manages public narrative and media. The roles overlap, so confirm who leads when a story breaks. For support from an agency with an entertainment and sports practice, see 5W's entertainment and sports marketing PR practice.
Sources
Vault career guide on sports publicists; Empower Sports and The Sports Publicist service descriptions; Bloomberg and Built In LA on SpringHill and "The Decision"; AfroTech on Blaze Pizza, Serena Ventures and Wyn Beauty; Bloomberg on Serena Ventures' $111 million fund; AP, ABC News and Flashscore on Tom Brady and the Raiders; CBS Sports, CUPA-HR and Front Office Sports on the House v. NCAA settlement. Re-check figures against the original reports before reuse.
