Seahawks owner Vinod Khosla desperately needs a good PR person

It’s fair to say that Seattle Seahawks owner Vinod Khosla and I have something in common: we’re both fairly unfamiliar with how things work in each other’s fields.

Admittedly, I wasn’t very familiar with him before he and his ownership group agreed to purchase the Seahawks for a record $9.612 billion in July. I’ve since learned that he’s the co-founder of Sun Microsystems and founder of the venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, and that he was previously part of the San Francisco 49ers ownership. I’ve also learned that his wife, Neeru, and son, Neal, will be heavily involved in different aspects of Seahawks ownership. Beyond that, I’m still figuring it out.

I’m also a Seattle resident, and I imagine the city is something Khosla is still learning about. I wouldn’t call myself a Seahawks fan, but I do appreciate when the team is good, and I’ve had the good fortune to celebrate Super Bowl victories around very appreciative die-hards. I’ve learned just how passionate and intense Seahawks fandom is here, and I know how important the franchise is to the city and region’s identity.

So I know that when you go out of your way to remind people you’re a Pittsburgh Steelers fan at your introductory press conference, that’s going to rub Seattlites the wrong way, even if it’s not a big deal. There are certain things you don’t need to mention, no matter how innocuous they seem.

I also work in sports media, so I’ve seen how the sausage is made when it comes to news cycles, sports coverage, and interview opportunities. For instance, when you interview someone in the field, a PR person is often listening nearby. And I know from experience that sometimes the PR person will chime in with a correction, cut things off when they don’t like the direction, or offer a follow-up suggestion to smooth out an unfortunate comment. Pretty standard stuff.

So when I saw Khosla tell Axios that he has no plans to move the team out of Seattle, but he “will never say never,” alarm bells start ringing, though not for the obvious reasons. I immediately knew this was the kind of own-goal that a good PR person would have nipped in the bud. Because obviously, anyone who has spent a lot of time around sports fans, especially die-hard sports fans, knows that you don’t get cute or flippant about topics like that, especially when you’re the person who can actually make it happen. And that goes for double in Seattle, where the pain of losing the Sonics 18 years ago is still acute.

Three months ago, I wasn’t even thinking about buying an NFL team,” Khosla also said in that interview, which, again, is not the kind of thing any fanbase wants to hear from their new owner, regardless of its validity.

Khosla comes from Silicon Valley and the tech world, where he’s considered a thought leader. As such, he’s expected to speak up and speak freely, something that’s admired in that space. There, he can make a bold proclamation today and let it be proven wrong tomorrow, because everyone is forward-thinking and wants to presume good intentions.

The sports world doesn’t work like that. You can’t be off-the-cuff in the same way. Everything you say will be picked apart by radio hosts, TV talking heads, social media accounts, and sites like ours. When you make a proclamation that turns out to be wrong, you’ll hear about it, and probably for a long time. The sports world lives in the moment. And given all the crummy things that have happened over the years, and the focus many put on profits over performance, the sports world usually presumes the worst.

Khosla responded to his latest mini-controversy by reiterating that, no, he has no intention of moving the Seahawks, and then chided “reporters looking for views and clicks who distort my answer out of context and sent an entire city into a spiral for no reason.”

Again, a fair tactic in Silicon Valley, where there’s a disdain for journalists and a desire for people like him to be seen as altruistic at all times.

But that’s not gonna work in sports. You can only get indignant and play the media blame game so many times before everyone sees the pattern. People in sports understand how this ecosystem works. If you don’t want to attract hyenas, don’t offer up red meat.

I don’t know how things are operating inside Seahawks HQ since Khosla took over. Maybe there are PR people around; maybe not. Maybe he’s surrounded by yes-men. Maybe they’re offering help and, like an overconfident dad holding onto the mattress on top of his car, he thinks he’s got it all under control.

So far, these own goals have been fairly benign in the grand scheme of things, but a day will come when the Seahawks suck, a player gets in trouble, or a coach needs to be fired. That’s when Khosla will need to communicate with the sports world in a way that doesn’t circle back on itself because of a foot-in-mouth comment that could have easily been avoided.

For his sake, and Seahawks fans’ sake, I hope he hires a good PR person before then.