McGwire Sets Table For Tiger: The "Door-To-Door Strategy"

Hey, and since they're Shady Canyon neighbors, what better way for them to bond than to talk about how to reemerge via a carefully crafted campaign? At least, that's what readers Tim and Pete both noted in Richard Sandomir's autopsy of the Mark McGwire steroids admission Monday.

The one-day plan — coordinated over the past month by Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary who runs a crisis-communications company, and the St. Louis Cardinals, who recently hired McGwire as their batting coach — contrasts with last year’s roll-out of Alex Rodriguez’s steroid admission.

And...

“I like the door-to-door strategy, in that he is telling his story in long form and in less confrontational settings,” said Kevin Sullivan, a former White House communications director who runs a strategic-communications company. “He needed to rip the Band-Aid off before heading to spring training.”

Sullivan added: “I suspect McGwire will soon have some form of a press availability where he takes questions. He won’t be able to completely turn the page until he satisfies the pent-up demand and takes some questions.”

Here's the part that makes you think, oh yes, Tiger will start with The Golf Channel:

In his repeated confessions Monday, he had no defiance or anger, just sadness and tears.

The McGwire interview was a coup for the year-old MLB Network and justifies what the channel is paying Costas. It provided McGwire with a stage for acceptance on a channel that is majority-owned by the league that has, after a long goodbye, welcomed him back to his old team. MLB has a little more than half the subscribers ESPN has. But MLB had an edge in Costas if, indeed, McGwire wanted to be interviewed at length by a smart interrogator.

(A corporate connection should be noted: Costas is represented by IMG, which owns half of Fleischer’s company.)

Isn't synergy special?