Unfortunately, in my experience with sports organizations, feedback usually doesn’t happen, and if it does, it is most often related to a specific incident that has been publicized and brought to the attention of management. The approach is lacking in terms of strategy, consistency and ultimately effectiveness in sports, yet is an important component for most businesses that provide products or services through both brick-and-mortar stores and online sites.

As a former sport PR professional, and co-author of sport public relations text, I am a proponent of feedback in the form of dialogue between a sport organization and its stakeholders. While I don't champion the revenue side as much as Bill Sutton does, he is absolutely on target with this post in the Feb. 13 Sports Business Journal (sub required).

Grunig and Grunig (1992, p. 291) boldly stated, in an era before the internet, that two-way symmetrical models of public relations described how excellent public relations should be practiced.

These two-way models have much in common with relationship marketing in that they are dynamic and seek to cultivate long-term relationships between an organization and its stakeholders. Feedback, or dialogue, is a hallmark of both. And the internet has spawned tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and others that make engaging in this process so easy.

Sport organizations must run, not walk, to implement Sutton's suggestions. If not for the revenue results Sutton advocates, then for the PR benefits.