It has become cliche to say that “any press is good press.” But does the cliche still hold true?

Being in the press, i.e. in the public view, is absolutely critical. For example, the sports world has recently been buzzing about the NASCAR team accused of trying to use a form of jet fuel to gain a competitive edge. One of the commentators on my local sports radio station, 103.3fm ESPN Radio, decided that NASCAR was happy that the racing team was caught because the controversy caused such a stir that the upcoming Daytona 500 race will get extra (undeserved) publicity.

I don’t know whether NASCAR officials were happy about the controversy, but I will say that the radio guy was right about the publicity. Everyone from Randy Galloway to Dale Hansen talked about NASCAR for as long as 20 minutes because some idiot cheated and got caught.

Does this person’s abuse of the rules hurt NASCAR in the eyes of the public? Not likely. First, the racing team members are not official representatives of the NASCAR brand, and sports fans don’t care so much about getting caught. They care about winning and losing. MLB (major league baseball) is a different story which we won’t get into. But in the instance of NASCAR, even catching a cheater in the act is nothing more than extra attention.

Like someone else said, as long as they don’t keep a cheater from competing, the penalties don’t really mean all that much. And until the cheater is removed from the event, the people remain largely unoffended.

But that’s sports.

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