As Senior Director of Basketball Communications with the Philadelphia 76ers, King visited Delaware Valley University and detailed what a day in the life of a PR director is like and how he found himself in the role of his dreams.

During a podcast-style interview in a Public Relations class, King discussed the perks and challenges of being a voice for the 76ers. As an aspiring PR professional, I appreciated Rob for sharing his knowledge with us all. You don’t get many experiences in life where you get to listen to a professional at the top of their field in their chosen career.

I listened to every word he said closely because he has made it to a point I want to be one day. As a Communication major who has discovered a genuine love for public relations, I found King’s story inspiring.

King’s day reflects the team’s schedule. His team of professionals behind the scenes work around games and events.

King said there are three different types of days within the NBA season. Here is what game day looks like.

Although basketball games usually tip off on a nightly slate, King and his team work in the facilities well before game time. King described game day as regimented. 

“In the NBA from around 10-11 a.m. the players participate in a “shoot around,” King said. “Once they are done with the shoot around, someone from the media will ask a player from the team to do an interview for a preview of the game yet to be played or any news regarding the team.” 

After this portion of the day is over, about three hours before game time the media starts to arrive, get their credentials and find their seats for the game. After getting the arena set up for an hour, around two hours before game time, King and his media and communication crew get to interview the head coach before the game. The locker room is also open to the media at this time, so any sound bites or pre-game interviews the media team wants to collect are done during this time.

Throughout the course of the game, King keeps up with the box score and does live stats for the game. For anything notable throughout the game, King likes to upload tweets to the team account @SixersStats to update anyone who can’t be watching the game. Once the game is over King and his team are able to start conducting their post-game interviews.

These interviews consist of the coach and two players talking about the game they just played. King added that this season is the first time since the pandemic, reporters are allowed in the locker room after the game to conduct post-game interviews with other players. Once all the post-game interviews are done, so are King and his team for the day.

After talking about how a game day works, King then proceeded to tell us how a practice day would follow a game day. He described it as a dummy down game day. The practice usually goes from around 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. while the media team usually arrives around 12:15 p.m. for post-practice interviews.  Like game day, post-practice interviews consist of the head coach and two players. And just like game day again, once they get their post-practice interviews the day is over.

During an off-season day, tasks vary. When the players get off, so do the guys who do all the work behind the camera. King said he likes to start his day off by looking at any work he has to catch up on or wants to get ahead of depending on how the schedule will go throughout the week.

On a busier week, when there are multiple games in a row, he may be traveling. Throughout the season the organization doesn’t get too many off days as there is usually practices mixed in between games, but if the team has games multiple nights in a row, a day emerges when he can take a day to catch up.

The day he came to visit DelVal was one of the days.

He said he likes to enjoy the time with his family because, throughout the course of the week, he doesn’t get to see them much. On days when King isn’t with his family, he likes being able to give back to the community to do certain events as he did for us at DelVal.

With very little free time throughout the NBA season, King was generous enough for sharing his expertise and knowledge. As a student hoping to get into the field, I couldn’t be more grateful.