Have you been holding back news because you are afraid of it getting swamped (no pun intended) by Olympics coverage? On the other hand, are you using the Olympics as a smoke screen to release less-than-positive news?
I ask these questions because I got a follow-up from the PR rep for Women Against Fantasy Sports to the post I did over the weekend. She provided the rationale for launching the site without a press release:
I advised them to delay announcing their site launch, which was August 8, given it was the opening day of the Beijing Olympics. I thought it could get lost in a sea of Olympic hype, and I also wanted WAFS to have an opportunity to work out any kinks with their site launch. We went out on BusinessWire this morning, which was the plan all along. [Here's the release -- JG]
I think this makes sense, and if I hadn’t happen to see the woman with the T-shirt, I would never have known about their site and their release would have been news to me.
Two more bits of critique: yes, a lot of sports coverage is tilted toward the Olympics (natch), but at places like ESPN.com, the fantasy beat still needs content and they aren’t covering the Olympics, so an avoid-the-Olympics strategy isn’t (imo) necessary. It’s also not necessary in hard-core business coverage, or lifestyle coverage, because they aren’t devoting a lot of space to the Olympics either.
