Eels Blogs

Ross Smart made redundant

Posted by 1Eyed Eel on November 11, 2009 at 5:58pm

This week, the Parramatta media manager Ross Smart was made redundant by the Eels. As I've said on the site before, Ross has been a fantastic help to me, was always quick to respond to my questions and helped me to keep you guys up to date where he could on player injuries and so forth. It will be interesting to see how Parramatta now handle the media role and I hope however the role is filled, doesn't take away from the excellent work Ross has done in this regard - as I think it's fair to say the clubs communication - from my perspective - has never been better.

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Replies

Morgs82 November 11, 2009 at 6:26pm

Well based on that info lets hope he does well in his futur e endeavours, sounds like the club has let go of a valuable employee .
Ace Eel November 11, 2009 at 7:56pm

I agree 1 Eyed ..... very strange decision....I thought he has done a top job.....the management should at least say why Ross wasn't in their plans..............
- cgee221 > Ace Eel November 11, 2009 at 9:42pm
  
  because now we're apparently going to outsource our media now, just becaue we weren't told doesn't mean he wasn't :P
  - 1Eyed Eel > cgee221 November 12, 2009 at 12:45am
    
    I think this would be a very strange decision if it were the case. My company provides services to the PR industry, so it's an industry I work within as well as having seen it from the other side of the fence as a journalist, and this is not a case where I would imagine an agency could provide any real value. Agencies are good if you need high-level skills like crisis management or if you're dealing with a large number of media or have a lot of big announcements and launches to make. That's not the case at all in League, you're dealing with a small set of known journalists and all that's really important is the relationship. As best as I know, every other club has an internal media manager.
    
    The only benefit I could see is that you reduce your costs in the off-season, because you don't have a high level of activity during that time.
Slaytanic November 11, 2009 at 8:48pm

Mate, you better put your hand up for the job!
iamnot November 11, 2009 at 8:48pm

I feel for the bloke losing his job, but lets face it, Osbourne is pretty good with the media. DF was a tool, and needed a media manager.
Bosanac November 12, 2009 at 11:30am

As far as I know, all Smart did was write up match reports on the Eels website. Anyone can do that really...
- 1Eyed Eel > Bosanac November 13, 2009 at 12:25am
  
  There's a lot more to being a media manager than writing match reports. You come up with media schedule, mail it out to the journalists, take all the different journalists requests, organise who is going to speaking to whom at what media opportunities, roll out your players to talk to the press, organise opportunities for the overlays for the broadcast folk, answer any media questions you can or try to set up interviews with players, coaches, officials, write and issue press releases, news stories for the website, etc. I think Ross also had responsibility for maintaining all of the content on the Eels website. You have to be very organised, be able to build and manage relationships with a lot of people, and be able to write on top of that. It's far from a simple gig.
ELECTRIFYING MAXFORCE EELS 2014 November 12, 2009 at 11:32pm

I support, 1 eyed eel - to take over , All in favor say I . I
- 1Eyed Eel > ELECTRIFYING MAXFORCE EELS 2014 November 13, 2009 at 12:26am
  
  Nay