Puppies, Players & Publicity: An NFL Insider's PR Playbook
What can a rescue organization or pet business learn about PR from the NFL? Quite a lot! This week on The Whisker Report, Mary Tan and producer Mark Winter welcome Brad Madson, retired Community Relations Director for the Minnesota Vikings, who spent 25 years connecting professional athletes with charitable organizations, community events and causes that generated both goodwill and media attention. Brad reveals how animal rescues can approach their local professional sports teams, why you shouldn't automatically chase the biggest superstar on the roster, and how discovering a player's personal passion for animals can open unexpected doors. He shares terrific behind-the-scenes stories involving Vikings players including Randy Moss, Adam Thielen, John Sullivan, Anthony Harris and Nate Burleson, from players introducing newly adopted dogs to their families at a Puppy Bowl event to Anthony Harris sharing his adopted cats on social media. Brad also explains why a strong visual hook can turn a small nonprofit event into a media story, why organizations need to make participation easy for athletes, and why relationships—not simply press releases—are at the heart of successful PR. Whether you're running a small rescue, nonprofit or pet business, this episode offers an insider's playbook for teaming up with professional sports to score some serious visibility.
Listen to Episode #45 Now:
BIO:
Brad Madson is the former Executive Director of Community Relations and Youth Football for the Minnesota Vikings, where he spent more than two decades connecting NFL players with charities, youth organizations and community causes. During his tenure, Madson helped develop the Vikings' community-relations efforts and championed Community Tuesday, an initiative encouraging players to spend their in-season day off giving back to the community that was later adopted across the NFL. A former television sports anchor and reporter, Madson is a University of Minnesota journalism graduate and former Golden Gophers tennis player. His longtime commitment to youth sports and community service has earned recognition including the Minnesota Football Coaches Association's Distinguished Service Award and a Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board Volunteer of the Year Award.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Whisker Report, where a podcast dedicated to helping anyone in the pet industry, whether you're in animal welfare or running a for-profit pet business. Come on, get some PR visibility and buzz for what you do. Hello everyone, I'm Mary Tan, one of the hosts of the show and the principal and founder of Whisker Media, a pet public relations firm based in Buffalo, Minnesota.
I'm also joined by my fabulous producer, Mark Winter of Pet Life Radio, who gets us to you each and every week. Hey, Mark, how are you? I'm good, fabulous, as you said. Yes, so what's new in the Pet Life Radio world this week? Well, this week, actually today, we just released a podcast we had Ana Gasteyer on.
You know her from SNL and the other thing, and she's up for a Tony Award this Sunday, so we are happy to have her on this week. And so we released that podcast today, so you could listen to that. That's on Rappaport to the Rescue.
And coming up Saturday, we're recording Meredith Vieira again, and we love having her on. So that's what's happening this week in celebrity world. That is so awesome.
You get to meet the coolest people, Mark. I know. Yes, and he's been doing podcasting since God created man.
Really? I've been doing podcasting, not Pet Life Radio, but since 2004 and then Pet Life Radio since 2007. Yeah, I think people don't know that about you. Like a pioneer, a podcast pioneer.
Yes, you are. We're going to have to do a show on podcasting, and we're going to pick your brain about that, but that'll come in a future episode. But of course, Mark, we're really, really happy that we're part of your network, because you can do PR for yourself.
And Mark and I help you talk to some amazing people. And speaking of which, our guest today spent decades helping one of the most beloved sports franchises in the country, especially here in Minnesota, although they don't have the best track record of winning, build meaningful connections with fans and the community. As the retired Community Relations Director for the Minnesota Vikings, Brad Madson helped create programs and partnerships that strengthen the bond between the team and the people it serves.
He has extensive experience in public relations, community engagement, event planning, and building authentic relationships that generate positive visibility and goodwill. And we know that a lot of the NFL teams work with a lot of animal rescues. So this is some great information he's going to provide on how to work with your local NFL team, or if one's not close to you, your favorite team.
So welcome, Brad. How are you? Doing great. Hey, Mary.
Hey, Mark. You know, you and I go way, way, way, way, way, way back. You actually pitched me stories from the Vikings years ago when I was a reporter at WCCO-TV, and I always ignored you, except for the one where you invited me to a Fendi purse party.
Yes, yes. I didn't do enough research to know really what buttons to push with you. If I would have known fashion, I would have had... And actually, I've got a story that I have to give the Minnesota Timberwolves credit for.
So Dante DiVincenzo is a player on the Timberwolves, and he works with Rough Start Rescue for dogs. And speaking of fashion, in the NBA and the WNBA, it's become a thing where the cameras, video, the players coming into the arena. And what he does is he brings a different dog.
Of course, he has a cool outfit on, but he brings a dog, walks his dog in, a dog, a rescue dog, and has gotten some wonderful visibility for Rough Start Rescue. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Rough Start is based here in Minnesota, and I'm actually a volunteer for an event, lead volunteer for them.
That's a wonderful idea to reach out to your local professional sports teams. How would they do that? How would you reach out? I think what you want to do to start up is approach the community relations director, and everybody's got a website now, so you need to go in through that. You don't want to bigfoot the community relations person by going around them.
At least reach out to them first, but then if you don't get success, and there's a lot of different ways to reach a player. First, I'd recommend Googling the roster. So I'll just speak from a Vikings perspective.
So I'd get a call, and it'd be, hey, we'd love to have Randy Moss, John Randall come out, and these are our Pro Bowl guys, come to our event. I'd say, oh, that's great. But I treat it like a deck of cards.
I've got a minimum amount of asks that I can ask players, because their time's valuable. So I'd always say, well, those guys are really popular, and they're great guys. But you know what? There's 53 players that play on Sunday, and they're part of .0001 that have made it to the NFL, and they all have a story to tell.
And so I said, can you name any other players? And then they can't. Well, then I'd pick a player, and I'd find out what their cause is all about. What are they interested in? And trying to make volunteerism remove the mystery of that.
And so I'd say, if you don't get directly to the community relations person, well, there's social media now. It's so easy just to track them down and DM them. And also another way is to find out what their spouse is into.
If I had a guy that his girlfriend, there's a program called My Cause My Cleats, in which the football players have their cleats custom designed for a charity of sorts. Well, this guy's girlfriend was big into the animal humane society. So I'd get what charity they want to do, and then I'd work with the shoe people to get them designed.
And he didn't really know what I said. Oh, are you into the humane side? No, not really. But my girlfriend is.
OK. So he gets the shoes designed, then gets a bunch of exposure with his cleats, and then he become really interested in the animal humane society. And then he volunteered over there.
So also finding out the spouse of players, whether it be the WNBA, NBA, all sports. So I have a question, two follow-up questions. First of all, do the individual players, are they doing their own social media? Or who's getting those? When you DM them, who's getting the message? That's a good question.
For the superstars, maybe they have a firm doing it. But for the majority of the guys, they're just doing it on their own. For example, Anthony Harris, when I was at the Vikings, he adopted two cats.
And he'd post with his cats all the time. And another approach is to find out who the player's agent is. And I never really liked dealing with the agents, because I'd get a call, hey, Mark is interested in any paid appearances that you have.
And I'd say, oh, that's great. But I'd like Mark to maybe volunteer his time with helping out a music organization. So the agents are always looking more for money.
And I'm selling volunteerism. But that is another avenue to get to the player. Is there a way to find out who their agent is? You just Google, like everything.
Google, you know, Mary Tann's agent. And boom. My agent gets me millions of dollars.
So tell us, what are some examples of the way you've worked with Animal Rescues during your time at your, was it 25 years or 30 years at the Vikings? It was 25 years, but it seemed like 30 years. But I think my favorite one was when I got approached by the Puppy Bowl. And again, for your listeners that make the event easy for the community relations person.
So basically, all I had to do was get the players, let them know what the event is, which I'll explain in a second, get their jerseys and get them to the event. And I'd say an hour of time commitment at the max. Don't say ask for an afternoon.
And then it also makes it easier for the media because they know that the event's going to go from two to three. And you put a precise time on it. So the Puppy Bowl people approached me and they said they were providing free adoptions at the Animal Humane Society leading up to the Super Bowl.
So I went to the guys on the team, and it's important to get to know the players, what they're into. So I went to the dog lovers on the team, John Sullivan, Adam Thielen, a couple other guys. And the visual was, and you always want to have your event, what's the hook? You got to have a hook.
What's visually interesting? So the families that were adopting the dogs were in the waiting room, and then the players had already mingled with the dogs so the dogs were comfortable with them. So then the player would come out carrying the dog and players in their jersey, and then give them to their new family. And we got tons of exposure on that.
And interestingly enough, and working with the media, so the Sunday before and Tuesdays are always, there's the only day the players have off during the season. So on Sunday, we'd lost a crucial game, and I was telling John Sullivan, who, sharp as a whip, if that's a saying, and I said, hey, you know, the media is going to be asking about the game. He goes, oh yeah, I got it, Brad.
You know, I'm just going to say, you know what, today I'm just here to talk about the Puppy Bowl. So he gave the media something, you know, gave them a little taste so they could do their job. And then, but at the same time, you know, kept the focus on the charity and the event.
Yeah. What you're talking about is when you need an interview because there's a controversy. So I did this too.
Like if I was looking for someone involved in a controversy, I would look at their schedule and try to see where they were. And as a media person, we did not care if it was a fluffy, happy event. We would go there and ask about the doom and gloom because that's just what you do.
You got to get the story and it doesn't matter where you go. So I remember, this is more crisis communications, but there was an event with the Love Boat scandal with the Vikings. If you can talk a little bit about that, because I remember going to, I want to say it was like at a food shelf to try to get one of the players involved in that for a comment.
What was the controversy? I always say part of my job was, I'm the Sisyphus of professional sports. So I'm condemned to always be pushing up the boulder, players doing great works, great works, and then boom, somebody screws up and it's negative publicity for the team. So the Love Boat involved strippers and chaos and on Lake Minnetonka.
So what happened was, and I'd put out my press release, it was over the weekend, it was a bi-week, and then Tuesday they were back doing their community thing. So I had a few events set up, one of which was St. Paul Public Library Youth Awards. And so press release, and my player was actually Nate Burleson.
So I think he's done pretty well in his post-football days playing. So a reporter from Fox 9 here locally, I'll just say his first name's Tom, and I'm sure you can figure out who he is. He was a dogged reporter.
Yes, he was in your face. Yes. So he asked Nate, basically asked, and Nate wasn't involved in the going on these chartered boats.
And he said, I wasn't there. He answered the question. So the reporter kept on asking the same question, like different ways trying to get Nate to say something bad about his teammates and stuff.
And Nate wasn't taking the bait. But I finally stepped, I said, hey, Tom, come on, you've asked the same question three times. Okay, okay.
But then we also had a clothing drive and for ARC. I remember this. And it was a super popular event.
It would involve people donating clothing to ARC, which helps people with disabilities. So they have a thrift store, like a Goodwill. So people would bag up their clothes, come to our training facility.
The players would unload their cars, win their jerseys. So the people donating the clothes got a little interaction with the players. And then the car would leave, next one would come up.
Usually it was just streaming of cars throughout the hour that we did it publicly with the player commitment, but people could also donate without the fanfare to ARC out at our facility. So it's the day of the clothing drive and like nobody is showing up. I mean, it's just a trickle of cars and the media is all, you know, all the stations were there.
So the ARC people called back to their thrift store and said to their staff, bag up our own clothes and then bring them out to the Vikings and donate, essentially donating to themselves. And then the media would ask a couple of the ARC employees, they would say, well, what do you think of this? And they didn't know that they were interviewing ARC. Well, the Vikings have always been great community partners with us.
So, you know, we stand by it. And because of that relationship with ARC, they kind of had my back and, you know, that's all about relationships. Yes.
PR is all about relationships. So Brad is an endless resource for animal welfare and pet businesses. So when we come back, we're going to hear more stories.
And we're back with Mr. Brad Madson, former now retired Community Relations Director with the Minnesota Vikings. Brad, talk to me about some of your pet peeves in working with especially nonprofits. Right.
Well, I think when they ask for money, you know, don't ask for money. And they want me to organize the event. And it's like, no, I worked with the organizations that rose to the top, Special Olympics, Salvation Army, and there are countless ones that are super organized so that all I have to do is come in.
I'll get the media there. I'll get the attention, but make the event easy. And, you know, speaking of animals, Randy Moss, he had dogs.
He loved dogs. And, you know, you get to know the players. And I remember he volunteered also with a home for troubled youth that have been taken out of their homes because of domestic problems with their parents.
So we're going over there to have a pizza party with the kids and it's his rookie year. And I'm going like, hey, Randy, when did you know you were going to be a superstar? He goes, well, I pretty much knew it in training camp, but I was getting tired all the time. Why is that? Well, I wasn't eating lunch.
I said, well, why wouldn't you be eating lunch? He goes, well, he went to, he didn't know. I didn't know the martial fight song and they make all the rookies sing their college fight song and he didn't know his. And so I said, well, what'd you do? He goes, well, I had to eat.
So I sang the Pledge of Allegiance. I said, what? That's not a song. He goes, I turned it into one.
So that was like the fun part of the job when you hear those kinds of stories or experience those things. And then we had talked beforehand and I asked you, you know, a lot of the tiny little cat and dog rescues or smaller animal rescues really don't get the PR attention that the large, you know, multimillion dollar specialty ones. And what's interesting is that, you know, the big ones all have PR people, right? But when I asked you if you had to pick working between like a small cat rescue or a large humane society or animal welfare nonprofit, which one would you pick? Well, it depends what's the best story.
What's the best story that's presented to me. So of course there's the machinery of the Animal Humane Society, but some of those smaller nonprofits would present really cute stories and I'd work with them and they were appreciative of any player coming. And I'll tell you what, you put a jersey on the player, whether it's a second string running back, the people go, wow, I've seen that guy on TV.
And I think the key is to have a clever approach. Think of visuals. So for example, at Children's Hospital visit, speaking of smaller nonprofits, I can't remember the name of the nonprofit, but they pitched therapy dogs that they were going to bring to the hospital.
I thought that's a great angle. So as part of the press release, I included, we've all seen players visit children and Children's Hospital wearing their jerseys at bedside and everything. But you don't see a rescue dog or therapy dog going in and that have obviously been pre-approved by the medical staff that the child can see the dog and it's in a certain area.
So that was clever visually and we got wonderful coverage for it. The players enjoy something that's out of the ordinary. And the late Dennis Green with Community Tuesday, he was an amazing man.
And his philosophy is when the team's winning, you go to the gas station, everybody loves you. Hey, great game, great game. But then you lose and then you get ripped on the radio.
But you go and you visit the Humane Society. All the dogs love the players. They don't care wins or losses.
So it helps the players stay balanced. So that was really part of the concept. It wasn't all about publicity.
It was also, which I did bring a former TV sportscaster in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, WQOW, Spirit of the Chippewa Valley. Not successful like you were there, but I was able to write press releases and encourage the media to come out. Yes, I forgot to introduce that you also are a former sports journalist.
And you sold perfume after that, right? This is all about animal nonprofits. I was responsible to keep everybody beautiful in the country. That's right.
You were a haircare salesman. He did everything between journalism and getting the job at the Vikings. And all that experience led to the career that I had for 25 years.
Because I was selling volunteerism to players. Hey, Mary, can I get an hour of your time to go play kickball with the kids at the Boys and Girls Club on Tuesday? I got family in town. Okay, well, we're going to visit the children's hospital the following Tuesday.
Okay, put me down for that. So you're selling volunteerism too. Yeah, and I would say a harder part of your job was getting some of the players to do it, right? Because everybody thought you had a glamour job.
I mean, you were the guy on the field that would line up the players before each game, right? Before they run out onto the field. Yes, that was crazy. I remember, yeah, it was like herding cats if you to use the animal.
The players are so amped before the game and I have to get them in the right order. So when the announcer says, Todd Stusie, then I get them to run out in the right order. Well, there was a player on the team named Robert Smith and he was a big Prince fan.
Well, it was the Raven to the year when it went from 1999 to 2000. So he had a party out at Paisley Park. So of course the players wanted to go.
I had Dwayne Rudd asked me if I could get him tickets to it. And I said, well, I'll try. He goes, Brad, you get me tickets.
I'll get you rims for your car. I said, Dwayne, that's okay. I drive a Nissan Sentra.
So a bunch of players wanted to go out there. I think it was recorded on Tuesday night, pre-recorded. And so Robert Smith was gonna go, but he didn't show up.
But I had Jake Reed and their wives had a bunch of players on the team out there. So I'm doing the starting line. Robert Smith is the last guy to go out.
So we got all the team out there and Robert's standing there with me. Crowd's going nuts. He goes, I heard he didn't come out till two o'clock in the morning.
I said, what? I mean, he's about to go play a game in front of 65,000 people, millions on TV. I go, what Prince? I heard he didn't come out till two o'clock in the morning. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robert Smith and off he trots to play the game. Oh my gosh, wow. Yeah, I remember talking to you and you were always also kind of nervous if they would show up or not sometimes, right? Like, didn't you go to their house to like pick them up too? I'd make it as easy as possible for the player.
And that was one of the things that led the community Tuesday is that my first year on the job, I had a Halloween party on a Thursday after in team practices on Thursday. Well, I had three guys lined up to go to this inner city Halloween party for kiddos. And one guy dislocated his elbow another guy tore up his knee and the other guy had like a virus.
So I have no players and I'm committed to go over to the community center. So I'm in the locker room and I'm going, holy buckets. Well, it was a guy named Corey Fuller, just a great guy star from Florida State.
He goes, what's up Brad? And I go, I have no players and I've got to get to the community center. I'll go there by myself and just explain that, hey, people got hurt. And he goes, no, no, Brad here, hold on.
And he was a leader on the team. Ben, Ben Hanks, what are you doing right now? I'm not doing anything. I'm just going to go to some, hey, you're going to come with me.
So Corey was a community guy to go down and ask a player to do something that right after practice, you know, bad move. But Corey bailed me out. We went there and that's where it's like, hey, only Tuesday is the player's day off.
So that way I know what I'm dealing with. And I do remember a player Kanetchi. He was going to come to the facility and he had actually had leukemia and he'd made its first public appearance and he had a chance to play again.
He recovered from it. But all the media was there because that was a big story. First public appearance of Kanetchi Udeza after he'd been through his treatment.
And it's like 10 minutes before and I'm in the locker room and I'd go out to the parking lot. Of course he wasn't there. A PR guy was in there with me and I kept on going out to the parking lot and the PR guy was just sitting on a stool in the locker room.
He was walking out there in the parking lot. Ain't gonna make him show up any faster. That's a good one.
But he showed up, you know, right at the hour and he was wonderful. And the bit was a bone marrow transplant. Oh, okay.
Well, we're gonna take a quick break. And when we come back, we are going to have some final thoughts with Brad. I know this is going so quickly.
We're back with Brad Madson, former Community Relations Director with the Minnesota Vikings. I want to give a shout out to you, Brad, because you did something that created community relations programs across the NFL and Community Tuesday was your idea. So tell us about Community Tuesday because that affects NFL teams across the country.
Right. Well, and again, it was with Denny's leadership, Denny Green, the coach. He'd say on Mondays, okay, tomorrow's your day off, get out in the community.
So when the head coach is encouraging it, it made my job a lot easier. But I did present it to the NFL and then it did at league meetings, you'd bring best practices. So I brought that one.
Another one that another best practice I had was if a player got in trouble and they had community service hours to do, then you'd work with the parole person and the player would always be showing up for your community events. Ooh, brilliant. I had one guy, they didn't know that the player was working off his community service hours, but they, geez, I won't say the guy's name, but wow, he shows up on every one of your Community Tuesday events.
Oh yeah, he's a great guy. Well, it was so successful that you are also honored by the NFL for this initiative. Well, I don't know if honored is, but they let it be known and it just makes sense.
And again, I think I stated earlier that it wasn't all just about PR. It was about keeping the players grounded. So there's a difference between PR and advertising.
And I think when we had a player pass named Corey Stringer and a year earlier, the Timberwolves had a player pass Malik Sealy in a car accident and the Timberwolves did, I gave him a shout out for Dante with the dogs, but I'll say what they did when Malik passed was they just had teammates saying, what a great teammate he was. Well, of course you're going to get that. But when Corey passed, he had a community program called Corey's Crew.
So I immediately called the teachers and the librarians that he worked with. And I said, hey, we're going to have a press conference in the afternoon. Can I give out your phone number to the meet? And of course they all said, yes.
So the coverage in the paper and on TV was of quotes from the teachers saying how Corey was so wonderful to promote literacy and the librarians and how he took time with the kids. So third party testimony is a key. I just have to point out something funny too.
So Brad is afraid of flying and he has to go to league meetings. So you actually took Greyhound buses. Yes, Greyhound buses and the train.
And I remember when they were in San Francisco, I took the Amtrak, the empire builder, out from Minneapolis to, I think it was Portland. It was either Portland or Seattle. Well, there was mudslide to go down to San Francisco.
So the trains were shut down. So I had to rent a car and drive from Seattle or Portland to San Francisco. And then another one was when they were in Philadelphia, took the train to Chicago and then to Pittsburgh and then a Greyhound bus to Philadelphia.
What a great way to travel. The only seat was available was by the restroom on the Greyhound bus. I'll never forget that.
Super. Yes. And everybody else took private jets and flew to meetings, but there you were.
Yes. Going the old fashioned route. Well, I want to take one more quick break.
And then when we come back, we're going to quickly talk about working with other teams. And we're back with Brad Madson. Brad, we are very focused on Minnesota because you spent your whole career with the Minnesota Vikings, but you know all the other community relations directors from the other teams.
So tell us, is working with the different teams different or is it similar? Is it kind of the same throughout all NFL teams and the NBA and Major League Ball and all of that? That's a great question. A lot of it depends on how involved the owner is, but I would work with all the different community relations people. And for example, if a player left the Vikings and went to the Philadelphia Eagles, I'd call up Julie Hershey, my counterpart, and say, hey, this guy is really into animal rescues or big brothers, big sisters.