Crisis Communication: Ray Rice Case Study

On February 15, 2014, Baltimore Ravens star running back Ray Rice was caught on camera dragging his fiancé, Janay Palmer, out of an elevator in an Atlantic City casino.  Local police investigated and arrested both Rice and Palmer.

Video still published by TMZ on February 19, 2014

Four days later, security footage was leaked to TMZ, on which Rice could be seen callously dragging and dropping the unconscious body of his fiancé onto a carpet in a hallway. Charges against Palmer were dropped and Rice’s charges were upgraded to aggravated assault in March.  Rice later pled guilty and accepted a deal in May for first offenders that enabled him to avoid jail time and more importantly, to keep the video of the assault from being released. 

TMZ, as part of the new media (Argenti & Barnes, Ch. 4), not only broke the story but kept it in the public eye.  This caused other more traditional media outlets to pick up the story as well.  For Ray Rice, his then fiancé, the Ravens and the NFL, the heightened scrutiny turned into a public relations crisis.  According to the Institute for Crisis Management (ICM), this crisis falls into the “Sudden” category (Argenti & Barnes, Ch. 9) as it was unexpected and unpredictable.

Initial Crisis Management

According to the Raven’s own blog posted on February 21st, John Harbaugh, head coach of the Ravens, and Ozzie Newsome, the team’s general manager, both came out in defense of Rice and termed it a private issue that wouldn’t affect Rice playing for the team. This is a good example of using the new media tools as part of a PR strategy (Argenti & Barnes, Ch. 9). In March, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti promised that Rice "will definitely be back".

Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL, spoke at the annual owners meeting in March and stated that the league was monitoring the situation. It was now seven weeks after the assault before the league commented on the incident. In a new media age, speed is of the essence and such a delayed response is outdated and glacial.

Rice hired a prominent criminal attorney, Michael Diamondstein, who told anyone who would listen, that the video posted by TMZ only told part of the story and that once the whole truth was learned, people would feel differently:

"We'll assure the public that when this matter is fully tried and completed, you'll have a better understanding of what happened and we ask the public to reserve making any judgment until all of the facts come out."

Diamondstein didn't know how eerily prescient his comment would become.

Crisis Management Take 2

Up until now, Rice remained silent, letting teammates and team officials speak on his behalf.  In late May, Ray Rice and his now wife, Janay, held a press conference with the support of the Ravens.  

                                                      Press Conference, May 23, 2014

What is striking about the press conference was that Rice apologized to everyone except to his wife.  Rice talked about shared responsibility – always referring to himself and his wife (“me and Janay”).  Rice looked nervous and uneasy and was constantly checking his phone for his notes so he could ‘hit’ all of his talking points, even repeating the ill-chosen line about someone who fails is not the person who gets knocked down, but the one who doesn't get up.  Rice became more emotional when he talked about his coaches and family than he did when talking about his wife or the assault.  Rice’s voice cracked when he addressed his father-in-law and apologized for letting him down.  Rice never looked at his wife during the conference, not even when he gave her the opportunity to speak.  His own words showed that he still wasn't taking full personal responsibility for his actions that night: “I think my wife has something to say. I don’t want to be the only one who [speaks]. We’re in this together.”

Rice’s wife pulled out a very short written statement and spoke very quickly.  She appeared extremely uncomfortable and rarely ever looked up during Rice’s speech or her own statement except to glance over quickly at her husband at the start of her statement.  She did not come across as a person who wanted to be there and share her side of a story.

Video still from May 23, 2014 Press Conference

With her head down, and a dejected look on her face, Janay’s body language was that of someone who was subjected and not one who was embarrassed by her own actions.  

It definitely seemed scripted as Janay also took shared responsibility, “I do deeply regret the role that I played in the incident that night”. The focus wasn’t on the assault but more on the damage to Rice’s career.

Initial Ruling

A full 130 days after the assault, Rice along with the Ravens owner, headed to a hearing with NFL commissioner Goodell.  In addition to player union representation and legal counsel, Janay Rice was also part of the hearing --- a very unusual occurrence to have an assault victim attend a disciplinary hearing.  38 eight days later, the league handed down a 2 game suspension.  The Ravens chose to wait until the league made its ruling.

While it is not clear exactly how much information the team or league had at the time of the initial ruling, it is clear that they underestimated the fall-out and backlash they would receive from the public regarding the ruling.  Domestic violence is not a new issue in the NFL, there have been over 80 incidents since 2000 according to an article on NBC News.  Prior suspensions have averaged 1.5 games; most incidents went without punishment by the team or league.  The Ravens and NFL treated the Rice domestic violence incident in the same fashion as the others --- with a slap on the wrist.

Infographic from harkeraquila.com

Crisis Management Take 3

While the NFL was hoping media attention would soon fade, incidents with other players kept the focus on the NFL and its “thug life” reputation. Commissioner Goodell was under fire for not only the light sentence Rice received but for years of lax attention to violence and illegal activities off the field by NFL players.  In 2012, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher fired over 10 shots into his girlfriend killing her while their child and his mother were in the next room; Belcher then drove to the stadium and took his own life in the parking lot.  Still, the league took no action to revise its policies on domestic violence until it was forced to by the outrage over its handling of the Rice incident.  Goodell announced in late August, a new domestic violence policy with a minimum 6 game suspension for first offenses and a lifetime ban for second offenses.  The impetus for the new policy was public opinion and video evidence.

Compounding the bad PR issue was the release of security footage from inside the elevator on September 8, 2014.  This time, both the league and team acted swiftly.  The Ravens terminated Rice’s contract that same day.  In a completely reactionary (and ill thought out) move, Goodell changed Rice’s suspension to a lifetime ban.  In what Goodell hoped would put an end to his PR nightmare actually only served to continue it.  There were (and continue to be) numerous calls for Goodell to resign.  Goodell, a lawyer by trade, unsurprisingly has taken the same defense that Rice did --- shared responsibility.  Goodell has claimed: not to have seen the tape; that the league never knew about the tape; that they requested all tapes but didn’t get them; that Rice and his wife told them a different version of events; and perhaps most egregiously, that he didn’t want to appear to be insensitive by questioning Janay Rice.  Goodell’s lack of leadership in this area has caught the attention of Congress.  It’s apparent that a change needs to be made and it should start at the top.

Social Media Missteps

After TMZ published the footage from inside the elevator, the Ravens deleted a tweet they sent on May 23rd.  The Ravens’ tweet (stating that Janay Rice apologized for her role in the incident) only added fuel to the fire and many said it smacked of victim blaming.

NFL Spokesman, Greg Aiello, announced the indefinite suspension on Twitter:

It was retweeted thousands of time.  Most of the retweets and responses though, were not favorable to the NFL, and some decried it as “too little, too late”.   While the NFL continued to use silence as their main response, a parody account of Roger Goodell (@RogInCharge) did not:

Crisis Management Take 4

With all the contradicting reports of who knew what when and who saw what when, the NFL promised that it would investigate its own investigation.  To that end, Goodell has appointed his friends, Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney and New York Giants owner John Mara, along with former FBI chief Robert Mueller as independent investigators.  Mueller is a partner in the law firm that previously employed Dick Cass, president of the Ravens.  Appointing this team of investigators is akin to hiring a fox to guard a hen house.

As public sentiment continued to be negative, the Ravens made yet another curious move.  This time, they held a Jersey Exchange event over 2 days in September, whereby fans could trade in a Rice jersey for another player.  This was an unprecedented move.   When Ray Lewis was arrested for two murders in 2000, and Jamal Lewis (no relation) in 2004 was arrested for cocaine trafficking, the Ravens didn't hold Jersey Exchange events.  M&T Bank, the team’s biggest sponsor, dropped Rice as its spokesperson while the team turned its back on Rice, a star player who was coming off a bad season.  It's questionable if the Ravens wanted the Jersey Exchange event to be a success, or if it was another public relations tactic.  The event was held over 2 consecutive days in September at M&T Bank stadium (where the Ravens play) and fans had to bring their jersey to the arena in person to have it verified.  The team would only exchange 1 jersey per fan and those jerseys had to have been purchased at an official Ravens’ store.  This served to limit the amount of exchanges.  According to reports, more than 7,000 fans turned up at the event seeking a replacement jersey. 

Crisis Management Failure

While some have claimed that the league and team officials fumbled the investigation due to incompetence, they were only partially correct.  There was nothing unintentional about how those officials handled this incident.  There was an immediate and coordinated effort to squash all videos and reports of the assault and an all-out campaign was launched to lessen Rice’s role.  Rice's own lawyer, Diamondstein spoke in hypotheticals about what if Janay was actually the aggressor.  

Rice was extremely popular, well liked on & off the field and was a star athlete --- the officials thought they could ride out this incident through silence and misinformation.  What all involved underestimated was the power and tenacity of the new media to dig and dig and dig.  Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, explained the tenacity of new media:

"Online journalists, meanwhile, tend to have OCD [Obsessive Compulsive Disorder] – we chomp down on a story, refusing to move until we’ve gotten down to the marrow” (Argenti & Barnes, Ch. 4).  

Unfortunately for Rice, Goodell, the NFL, and the Ravens, their lack of honesty, transparency and immediacy only fueled the fire.  Instead of a legacy of starring only in record books, Rice will also be in text books – as the subject of how not to handle a PR crisis.