The Colorado Rockies had an amazing run through the Major League Baseball playoffs before falling in four consecutive games to the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.  What wasn’t so amazing was the public relations mess that the team created in selling tickets to the World Series games that were to be hosted in Denver.  The team made a decision to sell the tickets on-line.  For two consecutive days, the Rockies mumbled, bumbled, fumbled and stumbled their way through a ticket selling process that tried the patience of any fan looking to buy a ticket over the internet.  8.5 million hits to the Rockies website in the first 90 minutes of ticket selling on Day One brought the ticket selling apparatus to its knees.  The Rockies tried again the next day and did sell all of its allotment of tickets, but not before further angering fans and committing several public relations offenses.

You don’t have a crisis unless you create victims and the Rockies managed to create thousands of victims all across Colorado.  For those who attempted to buy from home or work, thousands of hours of productivity were lost as people sat at their computers and watched the screens go blank as they attempted to buy tickets.  This was true the first day and on the second day of ticket sales.  For anyone living in Colorado, if you didn’t experience it yourself, you likely knew at least ten people who were shut out by the computer snafu. 

The Rockies compounded their operational problems by not communicating with their ticket fiasco victims early and often.  It would have made sense to communicate very early on Day One that they were having serious problems.  They could have done this through their website or their spokesperson.  It was evident to the end users that this Sooner rush to buy tickets wasn’t working.  It should have been clear to the team.  A crisis situation requires decisive action.  It took the Rockies almost two hours to announce they had suspended Day One sales.  In the meantime, countless people sat at the computers and either refreshed their screens or attempted to log-in again, and again and again.

The Rockies didn’t help themselves with the media either.  On Day One they called a news conference at 5:00 pm.  This was the perfect time to provide an update that would lead everyone’s early evening newscasts.  But the Rockies missed their appointment.  They made the press wait more than an hour before presenting their spokesperson who told the assembled reporters (and by now livid fans outside Coors Field) that they had nothing new to say. No news is not good news when you could have communicated that fact an hour earlier.  Further, the team spokesperson declined to take questions in the 6:00 pm briefing.  At the risk of repeating already known information, you still have to stand in there and answer reporter’s questions.  This is particularly true if you’ve tested the media’s patience. Losing your cool with reporters as the spokesperson did in the later news conference is also not helpful.  It is a likely indicator that there is a lack of control and crisis management behind closed doors.  If there was a Crisis Communications Plan in place it was not evident here.  This was likely a good example where a public relations machine is not geared for a crisis.  PR professionals in sports are used to handing out stat sheets and arranging interviews with players and managers.  The game in a crisis is won or lost off the normal playing field.  This is true in business PR too.  Unless you have a plan and experienced counsel, you are not likely to win in a crisis.

The first rule in any crisis is to stop or contain the problem as quickly as possible.  The fans would be understanding of the ticket difficulties if the Rockies would have just come out and said, “We’ve got a problem that we’re working very hard to fix it.  We want to get it right and we’re going to take the time necessary to get it right.”  One of the primary components of the Rockies public relations failure was the absence of a timely apology to the fans on the first day.  The Rockies afternoon news release that was posted on their website and distributed to reporters said they, the team, was frustrated.  The team placed their frustration above the frustration felt by the fans.  This wasn’t about the Rockies; it was about the Rockies’ fans.  To achieve forgiveness on the road to redemption you have to start by saying that you are “sorry.” 

The American public has a huge capacity for forgiveness, but they won’t forgive unless you admit your mistake and tell the world you are sorry.  A ton of good will went out the window on those two days prior to the first game of the World Series.  Fans may forgive but it will take some time to forget.  Success on the field in the World Series would have helped the Rockies repair the franchise’s damaged reputation.  As former football coach and TV commentator John Madden says, “Winning is the best deodorant.”  Unfortunately for the Rockies, that unpleasant odor is going to linger in to next year.

For more, see Denver Business Journal’s coverage of the Colorado Rockies ticket problems.