Examining sport communications practitioners’ approaches to issues management and crisis response in Northern Ireland

A lack of practitioner insight into managing the ‘crisis response’ is a glaring gap in the communications literature, and its subset of sport communications, that exacerbates the academic-practitioner divide. Senior sport communications professionals in Northern Ireland provided their perspectives on issues and crisis management via in-depth interviews. Findings revealed that practitioners pay considerable attention to the ‘tipping point’, the point where a crisis emerged from an existing issue marking the initiation of a crisis response. Declaring a crisis was deemed a last resort in the management of issues due to declarations being associated with resource and reputational risks. Practitioners developed their own methods for managing the crisis response, however reflection upon academic approaches informed these views. Capacity issues within the sport sector in the region means that traditional media remain the practitioners’ most important stakeholder in a crisis. Areas for further research for (sport) issues management and crisis communications are provided.