Q&A with Hailey Robinson
Communications coordinator for the Seattle Storm
Robinson, a University of Washington graduate, describes what it was like to handle PR duties for a team competing more than 3,000 miles away from her.
by Hallie Hart
Photo by Josh Kirshenbaum
Hailey Robinson was constantly working as she sat on her couch in Seattle and watched the games taking place inside the Wubble.
Robinson, the Seattle Storm’s communications coordinator, juggled a variety of tasks essential to the organization’s operation throughout the WNBA’s turbulent 2020 season. While the championship-winning Storm competed more than 3,000 miles away from her in Bradenton, Florida, following precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic, Robinson connected reporters and fans to the action.
She provided regular game updates from the Storm’s Twitter account, which reaches about 73,200 followers. She kept stats, and she moderated postgame press conferences on Zoom, giving journalists across the nation opportunities to cover Seattle’s ascent to the WNBA Finals.
Because her boss departed for a different job partway through the season, Robinson had absorbed extra duties, acting as the Storm’s interim PR manager. After graduating from the University of Washington in March, Robinson spent her summer stepping into a major role for a professional sports team that was garnering significant national attention.
It was a daunting job, but Robinson had experience in the communications field. At UW, she was the engagement editor and a sports reporter for student newspaper The Daily, and she also interned with the Everett Silvertips and the Storm.
Of course, the unprecedented 2020 season involved plenty of learning on the fly, too. In a Zoom interview from the same couch that had become her remote workplace, Robinson talked about adapting to changes and settling into her job with the Storm.
Note: This interview has been condensed for length and clarity purposes.
Q: With the experience that you’ve gotten so far, especially with working with the Storm, what would you say are some techniques you have learned or maybe the best ways to craft a tweet that creates a lot of fan engagement?
A: I feel like all our best tweets, or our most successful tweets, are tweets that involve our big stars like Stewie (Breanna Stewart) or Sue (Bird), but also, we had some really amazing highlights this season. And just focusing on those and getting really, really hype in the caption is something that has been really successful for us.
…Part of it is just that those big plays are things that play well on Twitter, but I think just getting as excited as the fans get, people really connect with that because they see you’re excited, and they know it’s something that they’re excited about, too.
Q: With (the athletes) being in the Wubble, what was your experience like?
A: …It was a weird, abnormal season in that I was on the other side of the country from the team, I’ve never met most of them in person, but (I was) handling all these PR responsibilities and taking on a new job halfway through the season as well, so it was a pretty tough season. There was a lot, but it was also a really good learning experience for me as a person who’s early (in my) career, with just starting my job, because I really just got thrown into the deep end with just a really crazy, out-of-the-ordinary season.
Q: How excited are you, whenever the time comes, to be able to meet some of those people, especially the stars on the team, now that you’ve run the press conferences and seen them virtually? What do you expect that to be like when you do get to work with them in person?
A: Well, so, after we won the championship, a couple of our players came back to Seattle, and we went and raised the Storm flag on the Space Needle, so I got to be there for that, and they’re really tall (laughing). I’m 5’1”, so basketball players are really tall compared to me. So that was probably the biggest thing I noticed, just how tall they were because when you’re on Zoom, that’s not something that really occurs to you. They’re all really nice, and I know them a little bit over Zoom, but we’ve never actually had conversations. I’ve just run press conferences for them. So I feel like I’ll have to in-person introduce myself to everyone.
Q: Especially when the Storm was in the championship, what was the amount of press coverage like, and what was it like to be responsible for making those press conferences go smoothly?
A: They definitely weren’t without their technical difficulties, which is definitely something that got easier throughout the season. I think the hardest part for me was making sure that everyone who wanted to ask a question got their question in, especially towards the end of the season, when we had all of the national media descending on us because we were one of two teams left. It got a little overwhelming at times. We had like 40 people coming to our press conferences on Zoom … It did get easier. I definitely have a little bit of anxiety, so once I got more practice with it, that sort of faded away, and that made it easier to stay organized and go through everyone.
Coming from journalism, it was like, I really wanted to make sure all of the people covering us were able to tell the stories that they wanted to tell, because I’ve been in that experience, and I wanted to make sure that they were able to get to ask their questions, because I know that’s something that would have been important to me. So I think that was one of my biggest focuses, beyond making the players happy, is also making sure reporters can tell the stories they want to tell.
Q: What advice would you have for other women who are hoping to get into the sports industry, and especially maybe (for) someone who is more interested in working on the communications/social media side like what you’ve done?
A: I feel like when I speak from my perspective, I’ve been really lucky to be working with a women’s sports team and one that’s obviously really welcoming and supportive of women. And I know a lot of women who are in the sports communications field aren’t so lucky. I think that I’m very lucky to be in the place where I am, where obviously women are respected and supported because it’s a women’s sports team.
And I really wish that everyone got that experience. I know that some people don’t, but I think a lot of it is about having a good support network and also advocating for yourself even though it’s really, really hard when you’re a woman surrounded by men. When I was at the Daily, I was the only girl for a really long time, and I was really lucky that the guys there were really nice.
…My main thing is that there has to be men who do more because there’s only so much that women can do to advocate for themselves, because they’re not the people in power in a lot of these situations. There needs to be people who stand up for them and support them. And I feel like it’s not our responsibility to figure that out, but it has to be.