James Trusty, IfrahLaw
The Shohei Ohtani betting scandal has receded from view for the moment, but its brief surfacing last week provided fundamental guidance on how not to manage a crisis faced by a professional athlete, while also giving rise to some serious issues for Major League Baseball (“MLB”) to address in the near future.
Lawyers and publicists in the niche world of crisis management unofficially swear a Hippocratic oath to “first, do no harm” to their client. The challenge to their success is an inherent one – the crisis team is always activated either because of an impending scandal or one that has already caught fire. This means that the protective team is necessarily in a reactive mode, and frequently one in which “the story” is already out, to the detriment of the player who they represent.
When your client is literally the face of MLB – considered a modern-day Babe Ruth – the accusation of a gambling connection is a big one. Shohei Ohtani is likeable, immensely talented, and the recipient of a 10-year, $700 million deal with the LA Dodgers. When the story broke that his long-time interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, had racked up enormous gambling debts to an illegal bookmaker in Los Angeles, the most critical emerging “fact” was that Ohtani had apparently paid $4.5 million of Ippei’s gambling debts. Logical questions ensue.
As a starting point, let’s recognize that unregulated gambling, such as an illegal bookmaking operation in California, generally leads to less visibility but also zero protection for the betting public if things turn south. It also means, in practical terms, that if prosecutors and investigators start plowing through the betting records, they will gleefully publicize names associated with pro sports or the NCAA “for public awareness,” also known as high readership of their press releases. In this case, the apparent gambling payments were leaked out after a raid on the bookmaker’s home revealed wire transfer receipts in Ohtani’s name.[1] Team Ohtani hired a crisis-communications expert who, on March 18, promptly confirmed to ESPN that Ohtani admitted to having “sent several large payments” and that it was “the maximum amount [he] could send.” This was unforced error #1, to blend in an apt phrase that used to reside on the tennis courts.
Unforced error #2 took place when that same spokesperson lined up Mizuhara for a 90- minute interview with ESPN. Mizuhara took full responsibility for the gambling but did not appear to address the issue of Ohtani’s knowledge and/or payments. The crisis management spokesperson then said Mizuhara has it all wrong, and the next day a new lawyer for Ohtani issued a statement that “Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft and we are turning the matter over to the authorities.” By March 20, Ohtani’s spokesperson claimed that the player had literally just learned of the theft from his bank account at Ippei’s hands. The bungling of the issue of Ohtani’s knowledge of the reimbursements is unforced error #3, or better yet, “Strike Three” for the at-bat of crisis managers.
Rest is here…
