Publicist Howard
Bragman now owns his own firm,
Fifteen Minutes. Photo by Greg Gorman
While he's
best known for his work with entertainment celebrities,
publicist Howard Bragman has certainly made a name for
himself in the world of sports. The openly gay publicist,
called by some "the best publicist in the business," has
worked with athletes and sports entities his entire career.
In 2003, he repped Esera Tuaolo as he came out of the
closet. Since then, he has also been the publicist for the
coming out of golfer Rosie Jones, WNBA player Sheryl Swoopes
and former NBA player John Amaechi.
We talked
with Bragman about his four gay-athlete clients, the issues
they've faced, and what he's learned in a long
sports-related P.R. career.
Outsports: Who was your first sports client? Howard Bragman:
When I started in this business, one of my first big clients
when I was a young man was Anhueser Busch. I did their PR in
a 10-state region in Chicago. So I learned every kind of
sport PR. Budweiser would have bowling and baseball, and
Michelob would have golf and sailing. So I got to work with
dozens of professional athletes, through their good graces.
OS: What did you learn?
HB: I learned how it worked. In college, one of my best
friends was on the football team. I've always had jocks as
friends, I think because there's a reality and a grounding,
and something I've always found in athletes is excellence.
People like to equate athletes with stupidity, and God knows
there are stupid athletes, but that's not what I've found.
I've found that people who make it at the highest level of
college sports and pro sports are for the most part really
intelligent and dedicated people. I didn't want to hang out
with dummies. Anybody who assumes that somebody who is a
jock is stupid is being very naïve and short-sighted, and
they don't know how the sporting world works.
OS: Who is a particularly intelligent athlete you've
interacted with?
HB: Years ago for Budweiser I had to work with [boxer] Sugar
Ray Leonard, and I found him a pleasure to work with.
[Olympic speed skater] Eric Heiden. [Hall of Fame baseball
player] Mickey Mantle; we didn't talk nuclear physics, but
he was a real gentleman. I was a young P.R. guy and Mickey
Mantle had to go to a parade, so they sent me to go along
with him. We're in Benton Harbor, Mich., in the middle of
nowhere at the Blossomtime Parade. We got in the night
before, and that morning I wake up in my bed and I hear a
knock at my door, and there's Mickey Mantle and he's like,
"Oh, I went down and got some coffee and donuts and I
thought you might like one." Those are the little things you
remember. And I think he wasn't a bad athlete, either.
I've had a great time with athletes. At my last company, we
worked with Leigh Steinberg for years, we worked with Marion
Jones. I've always done that. I'm better known for
celebrities than sports, but athletes are celebrities. And
most athletes want to do the same thing that most
celebrities want to do: They want to break out of their mold
and develop a "brand."
OS: Steinberg has been painted by some as a homophobe,
especially for his dealings with the University of Hawaii
and their dropping the "Rainbow" from their nickname. How
have you found Leigh on the issue of sexuality?
HB: We've talked about it. We talked about rumors about some
of his athletes and things, and how he can handle that. But
he's always been a gentleman to me. I've known the man for
15 years, and we've always had very good and very fair
dealings, and he's treated me like a gentleman. If somebody
is truly homophobic, they're not going to hire me. Let's be
clear. There are other routes to go.
OS: What's the craziest issue you've had to deal with for
a sports client?
HB: I wasn't doing the day-to-day at the time, but I think
the Marion Jones stuff was pretty crazy. That was a little
wild.
OS: What
was your worst experience with an athlete?
HB: It was O.J. Simpson. About 25 years ago I was in the
Chicago office of Burson-Marsteller, and they were at the
time the biggest PR firm in the world. I did a lot of media
relations. One of our clients was a huge financial firm, and
they were having a golf tournament. They paid tens of
thousands of dollars for this tournament. O.J. was coming in
for the tournament on Friday, and I was supposed to get OJ
some publicity on Friday for the tournament. Irv Kupcinet
had a PBS show called Kup's Show. His wife Essie produced
it. It was the most eclectic show you would go to, because
everyone who was in Chicago for the weekend would go do it
Friday afternoon. O.J. was just a surly son of a bitch. We
were in the car headed to the show, and I was telling him
the name of the sponsor, and if you can mention it, please
do. In the green room, it was me, O.J., Buddy Rich, and a
short man in a brown suit. Essie came in and brought Buddy
and O.J. into the studio. So me and the little man in the
brown suit were left in the room, and the man asked me who
was OJ Simpson. And I'm a smartass young kid, and I said,
"well, he's a very famous rabbi." And his jaw dropped and
said, "that man's a rabbi?" And then the light went on and I
thought, this guy really doesn't know who O.J. Simpson is,
so I let him off the hook, and I said, "I guess you don't
watch football much." And the guy said, "I'm the Israeli
correspondent for the Chicago Sun-Times, and I've lived in
Israel for the last 25 years." Of course, I felt like a
jackass. And, of course, O.J. never mentioned the client on
air.
OS: Have you ever found your sexuality to be either a
stumbling block or an asset in representing sports figures?
HB: It's certainly an asset for those who want to come out
of the closet. Beyond that, I haven't found it a really big
issue. I feel like I'm judged on what I do and not on my
orientation. Certainly in the old days, when I worked for
Anheuser-Busch, I wasn't out of the closet, but I wasn't in
the closet either. But it wasn't relevant.
OS: As a publicist, would you ever encourage an athlete
to stay in the closet?
HB: If they're not ready emotionally, absolutely. The first
male to come out of the closet on a team sport while they're
playing certainly has to understand that the scrutiny is
going to be intense. As John Amaechi mentioned, and as I
believe, you have to be pretty indispensable before you have
the balls to do that. This guy named Edward Bernays, he's
sort of known as the father of public relations, said a P.R.
person has different jobs. The first is to present the
client to the world. And the second is to interpret the
world for the client, and I take that very seriously. I talk
a lot of times to my client about timing, and the right time
to do things. And that's one of the biggest mistakes I see
in the P.R. world. Just because you can get press doesn't
necessarily mean you should get press at that time. So I try
to help them understand what the right time is. That being
said, I always tell people I've never had a bad experience
with someone coming out of the closet.
OS: Other than sports figures, what other celebrities
have you helped come out.
HB: The very first ones were Dick Sergeant [the second Darin
on "Bewitched"] and Sheila Kuhl [California State Senator, who
was on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis"]. And I did that in 1991. And then I
worked with Amanda Bearse after she came out, and then I
helped Mitchell Anderson right after he came out. And then
I've had clients, a la Bruce Villanch and Sandra Bernhard,
along the way who deal with the issue. When anybody comes
out, it makes an amazing different. I remember when Dick
came out and thought, "I haven't been on Bewitched for
decades," and we called him a retroactive role model. But
flowers and letters and notes started coming from people,
and you realize, this guy can change the world.
OS: If Tim Hardaway came to you tomorrow and asked you to
rep him, would you?
HB: I don't think I would. And I say that as the guy who
reps Isaiah Washington. Because it's got to be about more
than just the money for me. And before I signed Isaiah, we
talked for a couple hours. We knew people in common, and I
really feel like he screwed up, but I think it was a screw
up instead of being a homophobe. I look at the situation
where the guy has played gay roles in his career. And I
think somebody who's truly homophobic wouldn't do that. But
Tim Hardaway's a little different for me. I like to be
someplace I'm proud of, in representation. With Isaiah, we
have a chance to talk, to have a real dialogue. He's really
beautifully positioned to have a real dialogue.
OS: How did you get introduced to Esera?
HB: I was at my other P.R. firm, and one of our publicists
got a call because he represented Donny Osmond, and Donny's
manager also represented Esera. Even before I started
working with athletes who came out, I had taken other people
out and had done probably as much as anyone else in the GLBT
community, in terms of P.R. I've represented the AIDS Ride,
we did work for HRC, work for GLAAD. So, it wasn't a big
stretch for me. And that we knew sports was the second part
of it.
OS: What were the biggest differences between Esera's
story played out in the press and how John's did four years
later?
HB: I don’t think it's just Esera and John. I think it's
Sheryl Swoopes and Rosie Jones. Everybody has a different
reason for coming out. Everybody has a different story.
Everybody wants different things from their coming out. And
taking out men is very different from taking out women. When
you take Esera and John Amaechi, you're breaking a
stereotype. When you take out a female golfer or baskeball
player, you're reinforcing a stereotype. My business is the
opposite of cookie-cutter. The campaigns we tailor for each
one of our clients are very personal. We want to make sure
what the client is looking for is met. In Esera's case, he
wanted to tell his truth. John Amaechi's goal was to get on
the New York Times best-seller list, which we did, and to
have a credible speaking career in the U.S. And we achieved
all of that.
OS: How did John's story unfold in those first few days
of February?
HB: I will tell you how it all unfolded. I was working
backward from the date of ESPN the magazine and the book
coming out. Then Leigh Steinberg calls me a week before the
Super Bowl and asks, "will you go to Florida and do P.R. for
my party?" Here you put a publicist at a Super Bowl party,
and there are 25 journalists there, and my eyes light up,
and I say, "Guys, I've got a big story. In a couple weeks,
I've got a former NBA player coming out of the closet." And
they started writing about it virally. And that Wednesday is
one of those days you never forget. His identity was out
there, and I had a real fear that the story would go away,
but ironically a lot of media outlets who said they weren't
sure when I pitched the book, as soon as it went viral, they
had to have it. And then it just went ballistic after that.
OS: How well do you know Dave Kopay?
HB: Very well. I've known Dave about 20 years.
OS: How did you meet?
HB: We met at events in L.A., and I've always been a big
fan. And I just think he's a really good guy, and a true
pioneer who doesn't always get the recognition he deserves,
because we have such a nice ageist society. I consider Dave
part of my family in L.A. He comes over for holidays. I just
think he's an exquisitely courageous guy. He's just a kind,
gentle soul with a very true heart. Dave has been great to
me. When Esera came out, he sat down with him. When John
Amaechi was in L.A., we had dinner with him. And it really
provides a lot of comfort to those guys to know someone has
come before them, and he's living to a ripe old age, with a
happy life, and there's life beyond coming out.
OS: When people ask me what advice I have for athletes
coming out, I always say three things, and one of them is,
"call Howard Bragman." What would your recommendations be?
HB: Be real comfortable in your timing. And make sure you
tell the relevant people in your life before they see you on
a network morning show. I won't mention names, but I had an
instance where an athlete came out, and this person's ducks
weren't quite in a row. It made for emotional stuff,
particularly with family, and that's stuff you have to get
out of the way ahead of time. If you're dealing with the
emotion of your family, it's hard to deal with the media at
the same time.
OS: Are you presently working with any sports figures who
are thinking about coming out?
HB: No, I'm not. I'm working with sports figures, but nobody
who's about to burst out of the closet. I think if somebody
wants to come out of the closet as a professional athlete,
it's great. But I don't think they have a clue how much
attention there's going to be. John and I joke about the
fact that, he was a journeyman NBA guy, but he wasn’t a
brand name. This is a guy who wasn't a star, came out three
years after he stopped playing, and John has done more than
350 interviews since he came out, to give you an idea. And
that's with us turning down most of the Fox ones.
OS: Why'd you turn down the Fox interviews?
HB: Because we had a bad experience, and we didn't want to
replicate that experience. And you don't need to put a
client in a position where they're uncomfortable. And I
don't need to support media outlets that sensationalize it.
You know,
One thing that I find is that first real interview is very,
very important. In the case of John Amaechi, the first
interview was ESPN televised, and then ESPN the Magazine.
With Rosie Jones, we wrote an op-ed piece. It was very
important with Esera, it was Good Morning America. With
Sheryl, we did a slew of interviews. We did it en masse. The
first time you tell your story, it's very important, and I
work with my clients to make sure they tell their story
well, to make sure they're prepared for the kind of
questions that are going to come out. And there's some nasty
stuff that comes out when you do this. Some of the
homophobic stuff about the locker room. It gets to be silly.
But, at the same time, you have to prepare your client to
answer those questions. With John, we had prepared ahead of
time and we did a media training. But you always have to
refine it as you go. It took John about two days, and we had
answers for everything. And then you get to go on TV and you
get to be fearless, which is a great thing, because, if
you're not afraid of any of the questions, there's a
confidence you have, and you get to be extraordinary.
OS: The only question of mine that John will not answer
is whether he has slept with an NBA player. Was that from
your prodding?
HB: No, that was a personal decision on his part. And the
other thing that was controversial was when Sheryl Swoopes
came out and Sheryl felt she wasn't born gay. And we got a
lot of grief, and we talked about this at length. And my
ultimate feeling was, if we're about anything, it's about
freedom, it's about anybody's own experience, and if this is
honestly her belief and her experience, I'm not going to
discount that for the sake of political correctness. And I
heard grief from a lot of people, media people, P.R. people,
activists called me saying, "How could you let her say
that?" Well, it was her truth, and how could I deny her her
truth? And if you're coming out to live in your truth, why
should you lie for the sake of political correctness?
OS: I think that's a great philosophy. We've heard about
a number of athletes thanks to John's story. He really
opened a lot of closet doors.
HB: John was the biggest ever, in terms of the amount of
attention. It even shocked an old P.R. guy like me. I think
it shocked everybody. It shocked John, it shocked you. We
thought it would be a story, but the level of play it got
was kind of amazing. You're supposed to end these stories
saying, "I hope for the day when athletes coming isn't
news," right? That's what the ending is supposed to be. But
it isn't really the ending. We're into the change process.
Everyone takes it in a new direction. And what we learned
with John was, the stigma no longer goes with the athlete,
it goes with the homophobe. And I think that's huge
progress.
