The Beckham’s keep a very tight grip on press coverage. Interviews are pre-approved, reporters closely monitored for signs of being, well, reporters, and quotes are dished out with care.
They can’t quite do that to the same extent with their business interests, but that doesn’t stop them trying.
Today David Beckham got some nice coverage in the FT and a bit in the Evening Standard for an investment in Guild Esports.
Beckham bets on $1bn esports market, the FT somewhat breathlessly reported. He is taking a “significant minority stake” in the business via DB Ventures, we learn.
Ok, so how much money is he actually putting in? Well, we aren’t allowed to know this fairly basic piece of information.
He doesn’t have to tell us, so he isn’t going to, is the PR line. Fair enough, but why announce it at all in that case?
They way they handle this stuff is pretty much the equivalent of David Beckham refusing to talk about football matches he lost. Only ones he won are acceptable topics.
This is tiresome and hacks don’t forget it.
The pity of it is that both of them are admirable, likeable even. They don’t have to pretend they always get everything completely right.
And they have so many different PR people on hand that those flaks can’t really brief journalists honestly about when news is being released, because they don’t know what the other PR folk are up to.
The Beckhams are holding the goldfish far too tightly. It will flop right out of their hands.
