In current media environment, retired NHL star P.K. Subban's conservative pivot a savvy business move

You could take the savviest brand manager on the planet, double dose them on melatonin, add a mug of chamomile tea, usher them into a cool bedroom and put them to sleep beneath a weighted blanket, and they still wouldn't dream up the media relations winning streak P.K. Subban has been on since last week.

First, the retired NHL star appeared on ESPN's two big morning talk shows, Get Up and First Take, to deliver scathing takes about the softness of modern NBA players, and their selfishness compared with the team-first tough guys populating the NHL. And, as often happens when a high-profile Black person takes another group of Black folks to task in public, those comments were replayed, reshared and aggregated all across the Internet, racking up engagements on social media and spawning a whole new cycle of news.

Tuesday, Subban joined retired NBAer Matt Barnes on All The Smoke to discuss his NBA thoughts further.

Here I am talking about it. Now, so are you. Tomorrow, it'll be somebody else.

You can't build a whole career out of a run of publicity like this, but it can set up the next phase of your media life. And Subban's recent public support of U.S. President Donald Trump hints at where this all might be headed.

Since taking office Trump has made clear that the era of DEI, or wokeness, or any other euphemism for Blackness, is over. While private companies hustle to toe his anti-diversity line, the newly-minted Department of Government Efficiency takes a chainsaw to federal agencies, idling thousands of workers, and eliminating the jobs that helped create and sustain a thriving Black middle class.

In the media industry, we know which way the wind is blowing — straight into the faces of outspoken, progressive-leaning