In politics, you’re either on-message or you’re losing. Let’s get to it.

Welcome to On Message, a weekly look at where the battle lines are drawn and who is winning the war of words.

This week… Talk is Cheap.

As we marked one-year of life in a pandemic you probably still remember the week your inbox was flooded with emails from every business you’ve ever had even the most minimal interaction with sending you an email that started with “in these challenging times…”

For the most part, that effort was met with the ridicule it deserved because no one really thought the website where they bought a pair of sunglasses five years ago really cared about them at all and was likely just using the Coronavirus to subtly remind you to spend some money.

It’s called virtue signaling and in a time when businesses are actively looking to promote their high level of corporate social responsibility, businesses sometimes get out ahead of themselves.

Take for example the NCAA.

March Madness tipped off last week after a one-year COVID quarantine but not without some controversy.

The day the tournament began, former NCAA-athlete-turned-Stanford Sports Performance Coach Ali Kershner posted a comparison of weight room facilities on Instagram showing the stark difference in the weight room built for the men’s tournament, compared to the women’s.

The NCAA responded by tweeting a statement acknowledging the contrast and blaming it, in part, on “limited space.”

And they would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids and their pesky iPhones.

Later that same day, Sedona Prince, a sophomore forward for the University of Oregon, tweeted this video:

[SOT: If you’re not upset about this problem, then you’re a part of it.]

In response, the NCAA issued another statement this time from two vice presidents (but not the head of the NCAA, see last week’s video where I talk about watching to see who is sent to speak) saying the NCAA “fell short” and offering an apology.

More importantly, the problem was addressed quickly as a more suitable weight room magically appeared.

[SOT: Yeah, guys]

So, what’s the lesson?

Not everything can be fixed with a statement… especially if you are offering up an excuse for something you did wrong… and even more so when the excuse is inaccurate.

64 college teams with 15 players means nearly one-thousand video cameras connected directly to the internet and none of them have any reason to keep quiet for the NCAA. The odds are not in favor of keeping something under wraps.

Do the right thing and when you come up short, apologize and make it right. That’s good life advice, not just good messaging.

But the communication lesson is that, when you mess up, it pays to be honest about what happened, why it happened, what you will do to make it right.

The NCAA *almost* got it right, but the decision to offer a misleading excuse damages their credibility and eliminates any real goodwill that comes from, ultimately, doing what should have been done from the start.

And most of all, if you have given yourself a repeated pat on the back for doing something right, make sure you are actually living up to your self-hype.

That’s it for this week.

Let me know what you think. Did the NCAA get the response right or did they compound their mistake? Let me know in the comments wherever you may be watching this video.

More On Message in the next issue of the Utah Political Underground. Don’t forget to like this video and subscribe to our new YouTube channel.

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