Crayton Webb 

Welcome to Reputation Matters. Our guest today is a veteran sports reporter; he’s been in the Dallas Morning News since 1993 and has been covering the Dallas Mavericks for two decades. He brings insight, depth and accountability to coverage of one of the NBA’s most distinguished and well-known teams. Our guest today is an expert on brand reputation as it relates to sports franchises, athletes, journalism and sports journalism. Can’t wait to hear today from Brad Townsend. Brad, thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate you being here.

Brad Townsend 

Well, I appreciate you having me. Thanks for using “veteran,” which is probably a euphemism for old, but I appreciate it.

Crayton Webb 

Well, we’re in, we’re in the same category. So I can relate. You’re in good, or at least what I hope is good company. You’ve had a busy NBA season with the Mavs, and let’s start with what everybody’s been talking about over the last few months, which is the Mavs trade of Luca Dončić. So from your perspective, from a reputation perspective, a brand perspective for the Mavs and for Luca, walk us through the public perception blowback that the Mavs went through with this trade, and your perspective on seeing it all firsthand, front row.

Brad Townsend 

Well, if you don’t mind, I should probably start at the last part of your question, which is, you know, my personal view, and I’ll just start with the night of the trade, if that’s okay.

Crayton Webb 

Absolutely. And remind us when that was, what was the day?

Brad Townsend 

That would have been the night of February the first. And so I’ve been out with my wife. We were just gotten in, it was like 10:30, and I got a text from someone, a high level person from the Mavs, and they said, “Well, sorry to hit you with this on a Saturday night. Need to give you a heads up on something. Are you available?” And I said, “Well, sure.” And fortunately, I’d just gotten home, and so I waited. A couple more texts went by. I’m still waiting. He said, “Well, hold on.” And literally, a couple minutes later, the text from an ESPN reporter went out saying Luka Dončić had been traded. And my text reply to this high level Mavs person is, “Are you referring to the tweet that just went out from ESPN?” And the response was, “Yup.” And so literally, I mean, you’re asking me from my prism, that’s where I was. I was in the middle of it. And frankly, had I not been texting with that person at that moment, I would have thought it was a hoax.

Crayton Webb 

So let me ask you this, okay, most journalists want to be the first to break a story. You’re the hometown sports reporter for the Dallas Morning News. You covered the Mavs. Were you irritated that another outlet had the news first?

Brad Townsend 

You’re always going to be irritated. Unfortunately, in this situation, in the situation of like, breaking NBA news, especially of this magnitude, I wouldn’t say – I kind of have gotten used to it, because there is a pecking order that goes on. And frankly, if you look at it, ESPN pays the NBA billions, yeah, lots of, you know, multi billions and so, and again. And I don’t know who is talking to who at this point. Usually information like this gets out through an agent. So I don’t know who’s communicating with whom at this point. I don’t know if that person was independently, if the person, if the ESPN reporter, was communicating independently with somebody else, I don’t know.

Crayton Webb 

But you have to get over it.

Brad Townsend 

Right, because at this point, I’m already slacking my office saying, “Hey, I’m on this,” and my tweet went out probably like 30 seconds or a minute after because my tweet was, “I can confirm this shocking news is true. I could confirm it because I was literally being given the heads up. So that’s the prism, and it was shocking. I mean, I’ve been a sports writer for 40 years, probably the second… the second most shocking in terms of Mavs was when they traded Jason Kidd, and that would have been 1996, and I’m aging myself again, but I was literally arrived, had just arrived at American Airlines – at that point, Reunion Arena to cover just what I thought was a December 26 game that the Mavericks were playing, and I was pulled aside and told that, you know, we’re trading Jason Kidd, just want to give you the heads up. At that point, there’s no Twitter, of course, right? But they wanted to let me know. And then the acting general manager at that point said, you know, “Why do you have that surprise ook on your face?” I said, “Well, you just told me you traded Jason Kidd.” So there is a personal level of this. It’s a natural shocked reaction, but the Luka trade is magnified. I think I tweeted that it was 10 times, but it’s probably like 50 times more shocking.

Crayton Webb

So for our audience that doesn’t follow basketball, doesn’t follow the Mavs and doesn’t follow Luca, why was this such a big deal?

Brad Townsend

Well, first of all, he’s a generational superstar. He is, he’s clearly one of the top three talents in the NBA. Could you say, well, he should stay in better shape? Should he carpet officials less than he does? Yeah, but he was leading the NBA in scoring last year. He’s coming off of a season when he led the Mavericks to the NBA Finals. Is a generational talent, and so just from that standpoint alone, that is shocking. Then you have the element where he is just universally beloved in Dallas, right? That’s a big, that is a PR nightmare. And that is, frankly why the Mavericks were, this high-level person was reaching out to me, because they knew that, in addition to the news itself, they needed to have some level of, I wouldn’t say, control, but they certainly needed to get their messaging out.

Crayton Webb

So you said a moment ago that you thought originally that it was a hoax,

Brad Townsend 

Or there would have been, I would have thought that, had I not been involved in that conversation, I would have thought that the ESPN reporter’s account had been hacked

Crayton Webb

So but one of the reasons you certainly might have thought it was a hoax is because he’s this generational star and beloved in Dallas. Give folks a sense of to what the blowback was and how the Mavs responded.

Brad Townsend 

Well, the blowback was immediate. You could just see it on Twitter. People responding to my – “Oh, no. I thought, you know, Brad, I was hoping this was a joke. Now you’re saying it’s true.” The blowback was immediate. Was shock. I would actually compare it to stages of grief. It was initially shock and disbelief, and then very quickly the anger set in, and then you have the realization that this is true and this is not, this is a permanent thing. And so the early stages of that were the Mavericks – I did, myself and my colleague, Mike Curtis, we did talk to Nico Harrison that night, the general manager, when we had the conversation, it was, hey, this, this trade is actually not official. We have yet, we were about to have a conversation. We’re about to get online, you know, with the League for the formal approval. And so what we say here you know, the only understanding was that we not print those quotes until after the deal became official, because you’re not really supposed to be commenting, right? So I’m giving you some inside, you know how the, I guess, how the sausage is made, so to speak, right?

Crayton Webb 

And the relationship between reporters and these-

Brad Townsend 

Right, and it’s worth it to us. We’re the only ones that really had an extensive interview with Nico Harrison in that fresh aftermath.

Crayton Webb 

Was he prepared? Did he understand the magnitude of this trade? Because, you know, a lot of people thought, at least nationally, that a week later things will calm, and months later, right? Things did not calm. Was he prepared initially?

Brad Townsend 

There is no way that he knew. There is no way even clearly, the Mavericks did not know. They knew that there would be some blowback, but they did not know that it was going to be on this level. There, he, and that was my, frankly, more inside – you know, how the sausage is made. That was my first question to Nico. I’m seeing the blowback online, literally in real time. And my first question to him is, “Do you realize how big a deal this is, and what do you say to fans who are shocked and angry?” And his answer was, “I understand why people will be upset initially, but I believe that the results will, that we are putting a championship team on the floor, and I believe that anger will subside.” So he gave the right answer, but everything that’s happened since then is very indicative that it clearly shows the franchise did not know the level of blowback it would be. And of course, the blowback was obviously also even more proportionally bigger, because the player they acquired came in and played one game, the team looked great, but that made it all the worse. And then another level, this is, you know, I shouldn’t like pat myself too much on the back, but the team owner, Governor Patrick Dumont, he’s given two interviews. That’s his ownership style, okay? One was to me about two months after his family purchased the Mavericks, and the other was to me a few days after the trade. And so he realized that he can’t leave Nico out there, that he, this was an organizational decision. Or at least two people in the organization made this decision, the two biggest decision makers in the any organization. So the governor, Patrick Dumont, was certainly not going to leave Nico Harrison out. But it’s obviously also clear from Patrick and mine’s conversation, that interview that took place, that they did not they were not prepared for the blowback either.

Crayton Webb 

So again, I want to be respectful of the fact that as a journalist, you need to try to be objective, but also as a student of brand perception, and obviously having observed for decades, organizations and brands and individuals that handle themselves well with the media and handle themselves not as well with the media, and then that ends up resulting, you know, the coverage is what it is based on how they behave. Is there a lesson here, in your opinion, for the Mavericks that they either got or did not get?

Brad Townsend 

There is a lesson in, you know, frankly, I thought that they were, I thought they tried, okay, and clearly I appreciated the fact that they understood that the Dallas Morning News is the paper is the media organization of record in Dallas. And you know, I would say that Patrick also realized that I was not throwing softball questions. That was my one opportunity to ask what’s on the fans’ mind. So I don’t, you know, I asked him tough questions, and he answered every one of them. Okay. The lesson here is that once Anthony Davis got hurt, then Kyrie Irving also got hurt, and this whole thing snowballed. The lesson here is that the Mavericks’ leadership, while initially they tried to do the right thing, they tried to answer the hard questions. They stayed silent for two full months while this thing snowballed. And, you know, couple days after the end of the season, I find myself in the press conference asking Nico Harrison, ”Did you learn a lesson as a franchise leader and stepping up in times of crisis?” And he said, yes, absolutely, we own that,” but that 70 plus days was pretty painful.

Crayton Webb 

Let’s talk about this news conference, though, and then we can move on. There was this media roundtable, and they said no live streaming, no live tweeting, no audio or video recording. It was just very apparent, at least based on what I read or saw, that they were trying to control the narrative which every brand should, but also trying to control the media. That rarely works, does it?

Brad Townsend 

That was a, yeah, that was-

Crayton Webb 

Am I, is that a wrong assessment?

Brad Townsend 

No, I think, if you’re looking at it, that’s clearly the perception. That’s clearly the takeaway. And just full disclosure, I was not one of the ones invited. There were 12, I believe about 12 people, but no two people from a single organization. So our beat writer, Mike Curtis, who I referenced earlier, he was invited, and then pretty much like one from each TV station. So from that standpoint, I kind of understood why I wasn’t one of the ones. But I was also like, “Well, I have covered this team for, you know, 30 years.”

Crayton Webb 

Yeah. Well, and reporters are human also, right? So how do you let your, 101, I mean, you’ve answered this question throughout your career. How do you keep your personal opinions and expectations at bay, particularly with the brand you’ve covered for 30 years, you have relationships. How do you do that? And on the other side of that, how do you write a tough story that needs to be told and then sit on the same airplane, on a return game with the entire team and ownership sitting right there with you?

Brad Townsend 

Well, first of all, we don’t, we’re not on the plane. Now, there were time, in recent years, there were times when we were on the plane, back of the plane, we pay, you know, we pay the, we pay for the seat. But neither here or there, that that never really became a problem.

Crayton Webb 

Proximity wasn’t an issue.

Brad Townsend

That was not an issue. And frankly, you’re around them every day anyway. You part of your job is to ask the tough questions and write the tough story. And frankly, a big responsibility is to make sure you’re there after you write, after you ask those tough questions. And the product is online and people are reading it, it’s in the newspaper. You show up the next day. You be there in case, there’s in case they have a problem with what you wrote. So it’s a two way street there. They have a, you know, Nico Harrison and Patrick Dumont, they have a public responsibility to the fans, and we have a, as journalists, if you’re doing your job correctly, and you have a responsibility to stand up for and be accountable for your work too.

Crayton Webb 

What was it like in the Mark Cuban days, and how has it changed?

Brad Townsend 

I mean, that’s frankly, it’s been night and day, and that’s been a big lesson in this. One of the more, of the many interviews I’ve seen in the aftermath of the Luka thing, I guess we can call it, was Mark being interviewed by WFAA. And one of the points he made- now he was, he was being asked about the trade, and it kind of danced around that “I would have made, it wasn’t my decision,” but he was trying to be, but the most authoritative thing he said, and when I said, “Aha, yeah, you’re right,” is when he said, “The biggest thing that this franchise is missing is someone like me in times like this to be the public face and to take the bullets.” He didn’t use that phrase, but that’s, in essence, what he was saying, is that “They miss me, someone like me as a public face.” I absolutely agree with that. That is going to be a big problem going forward for the franchise, because now you know, until the, until NLS, the results on the court play out the way the Mavericks, there’s a huge public distrust about Nico Harrison’s job performance and decision making, and so that cloud’s going to remain.

Crayton Webb 

Likeability is important, isn’t it?

Brad Townsend 

It is. It is. And you know, to your bigger question about, I mean, we could get into this more – the Cuban era versus this era. I think it’s frankly a lesson from for any corporation, because the way I view it is, in I think sports and, say, your corporate medical corp- I think it’s very similar. I think there’s three levels of messaging, okay, the 30,000 foot view is the messaging that comes into an organization and the messaging that comes out of the organization. You want to exercise some kind of control, or what that narrative is. Within that, the third and the most important one is what’s happening within the organization, and that would be what we would call culture, right? And what happens in that organization affects, obviously those other two things, the messaging that comes in and the messaging that goes out. And so at a time when crisis does hit, if, if your culture is not, if people are having problems with the culture, that stuff’s going to leak out, yeah, so, and if you don’t have a relationship with them, with the media, then you’ve lost control of that messaging.

Crayton Webb 

Because someone inside is going to reach out to members of the news media like you, right, to share what’s going on. How important are leaks and inside sources, unnamed sources, to you and your work?

Brad Townsend 

They are big. It’s different for me, the Dallas Morning News has sourcing standards, and so obviously, in a situation where you look at the Mavericks, things have been pretty good for Nico Harrison’s four years, you would say that until three months ago, he was like a golden- everything he was doing was turning, they went to the conference finals, they went to the NBA Finals. Those were above expectations. Even the deals that he made that were initially panned turned out very well, but, but by the same token, Nico, he comes from, came from a corporate world in Nike. He is a soft spoken guy. He does not believe in being in front of the camera. You know, constantly communicating with reporters. And that worked. Well, that was great during the NBA Finals run. But as I asked him the other day, I mean, that’s admirable, because you’re putting the athletes and the coaches first. You’re giving them the credit, right? But in a time of crisis, you’ve got to stand up.

Crayton Webb 

Let’s go back to Cuban for just a moment. When Mark Cuban first bought the Mavericks, he was also a controversial figure. Sitting, you know, by the basket, second row, same seat. I think he sat in the same seat for the duration of his ownership, and perhaps still does. What changed for Mark Cuban that turned him, and I’m way oversimplifying, from a bit of a controversial outsider who came to the Mavs to someone almost beloved, at least, that seems to me to be the perception, whether you loved him as a reporter or not, I have no idea. But what do you think he did from a perception perspective, to earn that trust, if anything?

Brad Townsend 

That’s a great question, because I never, I always liked Mark. I liked his accessibility. I appreciate the accessibility now and I, and frankly, he and I butted heads more than a few times. He’s disagreed with things I’ve written, he’ll DM me, you know, that was, you know, don’t, don’t agree with that, but we’ll go back and forth on that.

Crayton Webb 

Maybe more colorful language, perhaps.

Brad Townsend

Probably, yeah, maybe so. So we do have that relationship where if he disagrees with something I write, we, frankly, I think the public always liked Mark. I think the public liked that outspokenness. They liked the fact that he was win first, I’m going to spend money. Now maybe if you were not a Mavericks fan, you didn’t like it. You didn’t like being a fan in San Antonio and having him make fun of the Riverwalk, right? But as a Mavericks fan, I think he’s always been beloved, especially because the previous ownership was not that right out front, right.

Crayton Webb 

So it’s such an interesting case study. Do you think that you know when he gives interviews, or when he talks, he appears to be speaking off the cuff, being very open, transparent, frank, if, if not just reactionary.

Brad Townsend 

Right. He is. Yeah, I will say the one thing that has changed, that changed over the years is the accessibility that I mentioned. Used to be before every home game, you knew where to find him. He was on his Stairmaster, and it was kind of a, I don’t know if the word’s demeaning. You’re standing, as a reporter, you’re standing beneath the Stairmaster, and he’s got sweat dripping off of him, and you’re asking him these questions. But you know, he’s top- there was no filter on him and but I think he realized over time that, you know, no filter on me is not always a good thing, especially because he couldn’t control the messaging, like he could say what he could say, how it was printed and how-

Crayton Webb 

And which part was used.

Brad Townsend 

And which part was used. I think he realized, yeah, no, I need to be more circumspect in terms of how often I’m available.

Crayton Webb 

Yeah. Well, or if it’s not availability, I mean, we coach our clients to say, this is a discipline, right? You want to look and appear like you’re very transparent and open, right? Be very calculated and discerning about what you’re actually going to say.

Brad Townsend 

Absolutely. And that’s, Mark learned that over the years.

Crayton Webb 

Let’s transition. There’s – and you may or may not have a comment about this – but you know, Dallas and North Texas, which you’ve covered sports here for 30 years, has a lot of larger than life figures. Another, of course, is Jerry Jones, and you can’t talk about sports in North Texas without bringing up the Cowboys. How, after all of these years, would you assess the reputation of the Cowboys and of Jerry Jones as a sports reporter?

Brad Townsend 

Well, on the field? Clearly, there’s, you know, the interpretation, the perception is they have not performed as the Dallas Cowboys should be performing three decades of not making Conference finals puts them on a handful, a list of just a handful of organizations that haven’t done that. From a business standpoint, let me tell you, I was having a conversation with the Golden State Warriors. I was doing a profile on the new Maverick CEO, and he had worked in order at Golden State for these owners, and I mentioned something about the cowboys and how Golden State seems to be more accountable, you know, to very similar organizations in terms of, he goes, “Listen, let me just stop you real quick. I understand you’re kind of talking in a little bit of a negative.” My point was, I wish the cowboys were as seemed as accountable as Golden State seemed to be. He goes, “Let me tell you, they are the gold standard. They are. They are what I strive to be.” So he kind of interrupted me, like, however you and fans view the Cowboys, I view them completely different.

Crayton Webb

Like, from an operational perspective.

Brad Townsend

You know, you just look at how much the Cowboys are worth. They are what every sports organization strives to be. Now, maybe not on the field, obviously, but in terms of business and how the Cowboys as a brand? Jerry Jones is a genius, and I will say that the difference between Jerry and Mark is that, while Mark would bite, would push back on criticisms, you know, and disagree with you. Jerry Jones has the thickest, he must have, like, 10 layers of skin. Like he has got very thick skin. You never hear any like pushback from Jerry.

Crayton Webb 

Do you think it’s that he doesn’t care and is just laughing all the way to the bank?

Brad Townsend 

No, I think he cares. I think he just understands that, you know, sometimes being in the news is, even if it’s not for something positive, is, is not altogether bad.

Crayton Webb 

Yeah. What a lot of people don’t understand about the Cowboys organization and the family is, is the breadth and depth of business operations, you know, the ownership of other businesses and other companies, real estate, etc, etc. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s almost an anomaly, that you can be one of America’s most loved teams, continue to lose year after year after year, and then continue, not only to be beloved, but make billions.

Brad Townsend 

Yeah, you could write five books on the Cowboys. How they’ve done this is probably the most unbelievable thing that’s ever happened in sports. It’d be like, like, say, the New York Yankees. What are, the New York Yankees couldn’t, there would be no way they could survive 30 years of like, this, right? But since they’re the Yankees, and they spend money, they do occasionally break through and win. Yeah, the Cowboys are, have kind of weatherproofed themselves in terms of just fans are always going to love, fans kind of love to hate the Cowboys. That’s the other aspect of it. They’re always going to be a lightning rod for good and for bad.

Crayton Webb 

So that’s a great transition into the business of sports in general. What have you seen change the most in your 30 years as it relates to perhaps not just the professionalization of the business of sports corporations, but also the athletes. These athletes understand that they own their own brand now, and are their own business as well. And I don’t know if Michael Jordan was the first or if there were others, but how would you characterize it?

Brad Townsend 

Well, for yeah, from my standpoint, covering the NBA, you know, as an example, it’s changed dramatically we used to in terms of access. You could sidle up to a player before a game in the locker room, or walk off with a player after a game or after a practice. The accessibility is night and day, and I think that’s the biggest thing that’s changed. I think lot of these guys do have their teams. They are carefully. There’s a sculpting that goes on that where their teams are told and then it comes through at the organizational level too. PR teams make this player available for three minutes after a game, as opposed to standing there. You know, Dirk used to after every game, you’d be in the locker room, win or lose, Dirk knew that you were going to want to hear from him, and he would come in the locker room and stay in the locker room and go, “Ready?” And so if you were interviewing another player, you knew this was your time to hear from Dirk. Okay, that accessibility is gone. It’s gone.

Crayton Webb

Why?

Brad Townsend

I just think that organizations and, and the people around the players are just a lot more guarded about what that player was, and probably the media is, is greatly at fault, because the media has changed too. I think the media, frankly, I think the media has, I wouldn’t say, like in terms of the Dallas Morning News and traditional media, but the amount of kind of surrounding media has changed, and so like sound bites can be taken out of context, even if a reporter, “reporter”, is not in the room, they can take a sound bite from something and then create a post from it, and things like that happen all the time. And I do think that that has made, that has been a big factor in athletes and organizations kind of circling the wagons quite a bit.

Crayton Webb 

Because you said, “reporter”, I mean, are you talking about the notion that the definition of being a journalist in journalism has now changed?

Brad Townsend 

Yeah, dramatically. And some of those reporters won’t, wouldn’t like me, wouldn’t like to hear me say quote, unquote. But if you’re sitting on your couch and you never go to games, you never go to practices. You don’t ever, you don’t try to have any kind of connection, to ask the hard questions that are in your mind. And you just write whatever comes up. You take a spin off what somebody else is writing. That’s not journalism. But some of these guys consider themselves, quote, unquote, you know, beat reporters. They’re not beat reporters. If you’re not there, you’re not a beat reporter.

Crayton Webb 

And how about training like or, you know, the rules of engagement? I mean, this is that still important? I mean, you mentioned you have sourcing standards at the Dallas Morning News. Some of these folks who consider themselves journalists, but may not have been trained as a journalist, have as many readers as you do. But do they follow the same rules? Do they have to follow the same rules?

Brad Townsend 

Some do. I shouldn’t just throw like a big, you know, wet blanket over the whole industry. But yeah, the standards definitely dropped, not universally. So here’s the thing, so in traditional media, there are fewer of us, right? There are more of the non traditional and so it’s kind of like the wild west out there. And so what, you know, you’re asking me a question. I don’t want to paint everybody with it, but I would say in general, the standards have dropped, because we don’t know how many of these reporters went to journalism school, took, you know, journalism law, journalism standards, you know, yeah, wrote for their school paper, work for their- you know, there’s just a lot of unknown.

Crayton Webb 

And the intentionality also, right? I mean, I imagine, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I imagine you go to work every day. You want to do a balanced job, right? You want to ask the hardest questions you possibly can correct and reflect as close to the whatever truth is, right? But there’s a lot of people who are now practicing “journalism” who are actually advocates for a particular point of view. Doesn’t that make your job harder?

Brad Townsend 

It does because if you’re, you know, we were talking about the athletes and the teams, you’re talking if you’re, in terms of their perspective, that what you’re talking about, the fact that there’s one sidedness, there’s going to be organizations out there that are going to kind of only take one point of view. That definitely covers, that definitely colors your overall perception of the media. So yeah, it makes everybody’s job harder.

Crayton Webb 

What do you do to combat that? And by the way, and perhaps you’d be willing to comment on this: the other side of the coin. Not only do you have more folks who are, maybe it’s unfair to say, playing journalists, but journalism outlets haven’t done themselves any favors either in the business of journalism, you mentioned there are fewer of you. What do the traditional media outlets, what blame do they have in this erosion of trust, if you will, of journalism as a whole?

Brad Townsend 

Well, that is a bigger question, because that goes outside of sports in my, you know. So I really can only speak from sports. So there are fewer of us. I’d like to think that we, as an organization, we as a reporter, the ones that are like showing up at Cowboys’ practices, the ones that are at every game. We certainly like to think that we’ve still earned a respect level. And I think it’s a two-way street. You know that if you, I would say, step out of line. But if you do, if you are unfair, and if you do write something critical, and you don’t show up the next day, that’s going to affect your level of coverage. And so, I don’t think our standards in terms of sports writers and how we cover the Dallas sports teams. I don’t think that’s changed at all. The access has changed. But we, we, I, you know, I think I could proudly say that we, as a newspaper, as a media company, we’re still doing a good job. There’s fewer of us, but we still have the- one more thing about Luka. Okay, so the next, the day after the trade, you open the Dallas Morning News on the cover, is a big picture of Luka. It says, “He was ours.” Okay? So as a sports writer, what I, he, ours, we don’t deal in, “we,” okay. We deal in: they’re the Dallas Mavericks, okay. But I feel like our newspaper, that’s one of the most important things a media company can do, is reflect the feelings of a community and what’s important to a community. And I thought that headline, as much as it probably like, hit to the core of like, it was heartbreaking, probably, it really affected effectively, I was proud of our paper, because we reflected the mood of the community, how the community was feeling, and that’s one of the most important things a media company can do. And you know, in some of our stories that were in that section reflected that, because we went out in the middle of the night. We had reporters go out in the middle of night and interview fans that were like already protesting outside. So it was a reflection of our coverage, too. But the big takeaway was, we get it.

Crayton Webb 

Let’s go back to athletes, okay? And because you mentioned Dirk Nowitzki and access, access is more difficult. And of course, we now have college players who can be compensated, right? And that’s a whole other argument that we won’t get into today. But besides them being more guarded, what have you what are the differences in the pressures that they’re facing, and how do you see them navigating reputational crises with the media either better or more poorly? Generally speaking, what do you see?

Brad Townsend 

On the college level?

Crayton Webb 

Both, college and pro.

Brad Townsend 

Well, on the college level, there’s just so many more layers, because college SID staffs, you’re talking about, like on the pro level, an athlete is pretty much required to be available, if or at least, he can choose, he or she can choose to be in the locker room during that 10 minute period, after the 10 minute cooling off period. College level, I mean, they can just make a, some programs have like taken this to- if he’s a freshman, you’re not going to interview him. If he’s an assistant coach, no interviews. I mean, they clearly, there’s clearly, you know, lines that are like, set in stone. These are the rules, and there’s no getting around them. Yeah, right. There’s more flexibility in sport, and because, frankly, NBA rules, Players Association, the collective bargaining agreement is that players are to be available to media. So college and pros, those, those defined lines that I was talking about earlier, much more rigid and in college sports now, and so that allows the athlete to really like, almost like, go into, except for, like, right after the game, you’re the star quarterback. Yeah, you’ll be asked to say something. But again, that’s like a five minute snippet after a game, lot more controlled. And so, and frankly, you’re seeing a lot more of a professionalization from that standpoint, because, yeah, a lot of these guys, so now they can, they do have, they can afford their own PR people, and so like, you could go ask the, let’s just say the star quarterback. You’re trying to do a University of Texas quarterback feature. You could go the SID and they’re just gonna maybe tell you a blanket “no”. Or you can go to the company that assigned that star quarterback and say, you know, we’d like, you know, to do a story.

Crayton Webb 

What do you find that athletes and sports franchises do wrong the most in dealing with a reputational crisis. How are they mishandling themselves? Most often with the media?

Brad Townsend 

The biggest thing is not being available. Okay? Avoidance. Avoidance is not going to help anybody. It’s, I go back to the covering, let’s just say you’re covering a Mavericks game, game comes down the last couple seconds. Player A drives in the lane, puts up a bad shot. Game over. Mavs lose by one. Okay, that player needs to be, it’s not life or death, right, but that player needs to be available after the game. Just say what he was thinking. Okay. Take that as a little snippet and just broaden it. Okay, a- whether it’s a college team, college coach, professional team, they need to be available to answer the basic questions. That’s, that’s the biggest change, is the accountability, that has lessened. And I think the Mavericks are a big lesson in that.

Crayton Webb 

Okay, we’re gonna move to a kind of a lightning round. So there’s some questions for you. A couple of these will take a little bit longer if you have them. I’m curious if there are certain crisis moments in sports history, one that might stand out as a reputational turning point for a team, a player, or an executive. You mentioned Jason Kidd earlier. Is there one particular, and it doesn’t have to be the Mavs, anyone, one particular crisis moment in sports history that you’ve covered that really stands out as that turning point?

Brad Townsend 

Well, I’ll bring up another local example, and it’s a great example. Scotty Scheffler. Okay, so Scotty Scheffler has a complete, his reputation is unquestioned, pristine. The guy, you know, he does, his family is tremendous. I’ve known his family since he was, you know, 16 years old, playing at the Byron Nelson tournament. So one day he’s pulling, he’s number one golfer in the world. He pulls, tries to pull into the PGA Championship. And, you know, we know what happened.

Crayton Webb 

Well, recount for our listeners who don’t remember, briefly recount it.

Brad Townsend 

So, you know, it’s, it’s practically dark. It’s like six something in the morning. There’s a traffic jam. It’s, it’s in Louisville, Kentucky, you know, kind of a, so what he didn’t realize is that a pedestrian had been killed, and so security around the club had heightened, and there was, you know, sensitivities were heightened. And you know, you can say, I guess there’s whether he was right or wrong. He’s the number one golfer in the world. He is pulling up to the clubhouse. He’s got badges on and all that. And you know, a security, a policeman tried to stop him. And, you know, there’s different accounts on exactly what happened, but the result is the number one golfer in the world with a pristine reputation. Next thing you know, he’s not only in handcuffs, it’s happening in real time, and it’s a shocking development. I mean, you’re talking about as shocking as the Luka Dončić thing was, this was probably up there in terms of shock level, okay, but listen, so he’s taken to jail. Now, we realized he didn’t kill anybody. He didn’t, so, but all of a sudden everything was swirling. Was he getting preferential treatment? Was he unfairly treated? He gets out of jail, his team, his family and his team rally around him. He gets legal representation. He gets out. He goes to the PGA Championship and shoots like a 66. Unbelievable, right? Afterward he would he hit every, he hit every right note. He didn’t have to be coached.

Crayton Webb

What did he say? Remind us what he said.

Brad Townsend 

Look, it was a big, it was a big misunderstanding. Police officers have a job to do. But he was also introspective. He was honest. He described being in the jail cell, shaking, you know? He gave the personal, the whole, he talked about how it affected him as a human being, but he was also very respectful saying, Well, I think this, there’s certain things I can’t say. I think this will, you know, I think when the whole story comes out, you know? But he answered every question honestly, and he made sure to say, “Look, I respect police officers and the job they do.”

Crayton Webb 

Yeah. So that’s a story of someone with a great reputation who protected it and did it the right way. Is there a situation from the other side that really surprised you, where the mighty fell and handled it poorly? And part of the reason that that they might have fallen, from a reputation perspective, is because of they handled it, any sports situation come to mind with a brand or a particular individual?

Brad Townsend 

Well, I mean, I think the Mavericks, you know, we’ve already discussed that at length, yeah, another one that jumps out is like, when the Cowboys and Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson had their falling out, that was a kind of a thing that obviously completely spun out of control. I don’t know what the Cowboys could have done differently, honestly, back then, but you had so many, there was no way to rein that story in, yeah, but I don’t, I don’t think the Cowboys, Jerry didn’t handle that correctly, and neither did Jimmy. That’s the big one that jumps out where a, like, when you’re talking about Dallas-Fort Worth sports history, that’s the closest example to the Mavericks of just everything crashing down all at once.

Crayton Webb 

Okay, so here we go with lightning round questions. The dream team or sport that you would want to cover of something other than basketball?

Brad Townsend 

I’ve been to the Kentucky Derby site, but I’ve never covered the Kentucky Derby. Probably also maybe the Indy 500.

Crayton Webb 

Okay. Favorite retired athlete? I won’t ask you who your favorite current athlete is. That’s not fair. Favorite retired athlete.

Brad Townsend 

Well, he’s, you know, he’s deceased now, but Byron Nelson was clearly my, my favorite, and will always be.

Crayton Webb 

That could be a whole other podcast. Most memorable sports moment.

Brad Townsend 

Hmm, you mean that I witnessed in person?

Crayton Webb

Oh, sure.

Brad Townsend

1999 British Open. Jean Van De Velde, I’m standing behind the 18th green and Jean Van De Velde goes in the water completely takes him so he’s leading the British Open by three shots. And it was complete, utter collapse. Oh yeah, it’s pretty, if you Google it, it’s pretty. It was pretty. It’s probably the biggest golf major collapse in history. And the rare thing where I’m actually over in Europe, yeah.

Crayton Webb 

Most memorable athlete interview?

Brad Townsend 

Well, yeah, that’s pretty easy too. Dirk Nowitzki. So I once got to spend, after really, several years of reaching out or asking Dirk if I could do this was I toured Children’s Hospital with him while he’s visiting patients as really kind of a fly on the wall, and that was, frankly, an honor and a privilege.

Crayton Webb 

And just kudos to you. I think at his very last game, they showed a video of you two together. Really was less about the interview and more about all of it, and it was a bit of a tribute to you too, if I recall, so well done. The sports figure you would want to write a book about? Or maybe are.

Brad Townsend 

No, wow, I would like to write the Mark Cuban book. I wrote a book, I wrote a story about him once that I think still probably I’d like to think one of the better stories about Mark, about when he first got to Dallas and he was really penniless and lived in an apartment. Shared an apartment with four guys, and he slept on the floor. I mean, the Mark Cuban story is a movie. Yeah, I frequently asked him, you know, he goes, “No, there will never be a movie.” But that is just utterly fascinating. Just this guy who went to University of Indiana from Pittsburgh, came to Dallas in 1992 with a, you know, in a Fiat X19, hole on the floorboard, wrinkled clothes in the back of his car, came with nothing and became Mark Cuban.

Crayton Webb 

Okay, favorite arena or stadium to cover a game, preferably outside of Dallas.

Brad Townsend

Well, my favorite, I’m really old school and showing off my age, I covered one of the last few games in Boston Garden. The Mavs were there near the end of that. Chicago Stadium. Now, those places were really armpits, like they were not good by the, by their, there was a reason that they got a new arena. But I mean, just to be there and covering those NBA Finals in the old Chicago Stadium were pretty cool, you know, Yankee Stadium. And I’ve been fortunate because I’ve covered several British opens and so to be in Trune or to be at, you know, St. Andrews, yeah, those are kind of bucket list things. I also covered a Tour de France that was crazy, obviously.

Crayton Webb 

Lance Armstrong, was he riding?

Brad Townsend 

Yeah, I was actually covering the British Open. Actually, the British Open that I mentioned was Jean Van De Velde melting down. I had been told, I’d been called during that British Open. Hey, while you’re at the, while you’re, since you’re over in Europe, this guy from, you know, Dallas is, looks like he’s going to win the Tour de France. Can you get over to France after the British Open? So I scrambled and went over and rented a car in the middle of the night and drove down, you know, through France to catch up to where the tour of France was followed him up, ended up having, like a- the night before he rode into Paris, was just me and Lance Armstrong, like at midnight, you know, just sitting, you know, talking about his life growing up in Texas, and what in Dallas, and what a big moment this was going to be for him. That’s that, in terms of interviews, that’s pretty big. Now, I did ask him point blank if he was cheating, and he said, “No.”

Crayton Webb 

Talk about an iconic figure that also fell, right, and still hasn’t recovered. If ever. One thing that fans think they understand about sports journalism, but totally get wrong?

Brad Townsend 

Well, they think that we’re, listen, it’s great to be at these events, but it’s, you’re working. So I will, I was, still have friends who will, like, last second great shot or whatever, once in a while, they’re like, they’ll be texting me. Dude, I’m in the middle, I’m on deadline. Like, that’s what people don’t understand, is sometimes, you know, like with a newspaper, the game could end at 10 o’clock. I have to have a version of a story in, like, at the buzzer. So don’t text me during, bad time.

Crayton Webb 

I remember hearing one story about you. This is perhaps when you were flying with the Mavericks that that you were under deadline, you had Wi-Fi, and the plane couldn’t take off until you filed your story, and the team and Cuban were all like, “Come on, Brad,”

Brad Townsend 

Yeah, no, no, they were never gonna hold anything up. But there were many times when I scrambled that I had to make sure that I was sweating the fact they weren’t gonna hold it for me.

Crayton Webb 

All right. We ask everybody these. Favorite subject in school.

Brad Townsend

Oh, English.

Crayton Webb

Major in college?

Brad Townsend

Journalism.

Crayton Webb

Favorite holiday.

Brad Townsend

Christmas.

Crayton Webb

Favorite hobby?

Brad Townsend

Golf.

Crayton Webb

Favorite guilty pleasure. Maybe that’s the same.

Brad Townsend

Yeah. Golf.

Crayton Webb

Okay, your favorite brand? Like, do you have a brand name that you like, or a sports franchise, perhaps?

Brad Townsend 

Well, I grew up as a spurs fan and they, that’s, you talk about a brand that’s a yes, that’s a iconic brand.

Crayton Webb 

You have a favorite movie?

Brad Townsend 

I can’t say, no.

Crayton Webb

Favorite sports movie.

Brad Townsend

I mean, when I was the movie one on one with Robbie Benson, I love that thing. Hoosiers. Terrific movie, anything with kind of basketball, I like.

Crayton Webb 

Favorite day of the week.

Brad Townsend 

Sunday.

Crayton Webb 

Hidden talent or superpower.

Brad Townsend 

Zilch.

Crayton Webb

No? Oh, come on.

Brad Townsend

Hidden talent, yeah. I, no, I can’t think. I will say this. Okay, so I did play basketball in high school, and I was Mr. Basketball of my high school.

Crayton Webb

Fantastic.

Brad Townsend

I don’t think, you know, I don’t make that a public because I’m way past that. So, but I did, I, did, you know, I do cover basketball, and there is a reason that I gravitate to basketball is because I actually played varsity basketball.

Crayton Webb 

If you had to pick a career other than sports journalism, what would it be?

Brad Townsend 

Something in communications, probably, because I, you know, I, my grandfather was a, was a newspaper reporter. He covered outdoors, yeah. Now, I was not a hunter and fisher like him, but just something in the communication field. I kind of feel like it’s my – I write.

Crayton Webb 

If you could pick one person living or dead that you could meet for dinner, who would it be?

Brad Townsend 

Abraham Lincoln.

Crayton Webb 

I thought you would say a sports person.

Brad Townsend 

I mean, you did ask a broad question.

Crayton Webb 

Fair enough. You can tell my journalism skills are a little dusty at best. Favorite sports figure you’d have a dinner with, alive or dead, someone you like to spend more time with?

Brad Townsend 

Yeah, well, I mean, I say basketball, you know, golf is my sec- probably my second love. So I’d say like Ben Hogan, yeah, I got to know Byron. I would have liked to have known Ben better, yeah.

Crayton Webb 

Brad Townsend, thank you so much for your time. You’ve been so generous and so open, fascinating to get your take on journalism, sports journalism, the Mavs, athletic brands, athletes, all of it.

Brad Townsend 

Appreciate you having me. Hope I didn’t babble too much. No. Wonderful, wonderful time.

Crayton Webb 

No. Wonderful, wonderful time. And thank you all for joining us on Reputation Matters. Be sure to check out this and other episodes at sunwestpr.com or on your favorite platform for any kind of podcasts, and we’ll see you next time. Thanks so much.