Press conferences as circus sideshows

When I was covering a big college football beat, the weekly presser was the worst place to get good material. I always found the availabilities after practice much more informative. The head coach was usually more candid, the assistant coaches and coordinators were all available, and more players were available for a longer period of time.

I never skipped the weekly presser. Usually there was some good stuff, and if nothing else, that's when the initial injury report for the week came out.

 

Streaming or televising a presser is designed to do nothing but 1) pump said subject's cash flow and 2) marginalize old media. Fans already are paying to watch. Now, they're paying to watch the home team carefully craft its promotional message. Soon, teams will cease to credential outside media.

But what the hell, it's only sports, right?

 

I covered a NFL team where two of the local radio guys are former players and whenever there were controversial topics being discussed, one of them would interrupt with a gem like "Can you talk about the spectacular recent play of the inside linebackers?"

When I covered colleges, boosters were almost always in the postgame press conferences. They rarely asked questions, but would applaud when the coaches would come in and occasionally boo if they didn't like a question. They also took the first three rows of seats which went on until enough of us complained and they were told they had to sit in the back.

 

About 10 years ago I was at SEC Media Days and David Cutcliffe was at the podium and the PR guy says, "OK, two more questions."
Someone asked him about a player who had either died or had been diagnosed with cancer and he starts talking about this kid and it's just great, great stuff. Writers who hadn't written a single word down the entire press conference start scribbling madly in their notebooks.

He starts tearing up and pauses as his voice cracks.

A longtime SEC hack who should know better yells down.

"COACH, CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR SCHEDULE?"

End of presser.

 

Not that Patriots press conferences are a wealth of information, but this is patently false.

 

To back up what Moddy said: I was on the Tech beat with him from 2001-07 (and am back on it now for football after a brief hiatus not of my choosing).
Anyway, it was the spring of 2005 and I e-mailed sports info to let them know I was attending practice and would be bringing a photographer for a feature. As Frank walked out there for the start of practice, he greets us and tells the photog, "Shoot what you want."
As long as you were professional and stayed out of the way, you could walk around and watch every snap. Imagine doing that with Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, etc. Now you have no chance to talk one-on-one with anyone except for media day in August or -- if you get really lucky -- after a game before the rest of the scrum gets to him.
With access so tightly controlled at BCS schools, I've found that my other beat at the local website for which I write -- ETSU basketball -- is far more informal. For that matter, that whole league (A-Sun) is pretty easy to cover.
Last year, I tried to track down Stetson's Derek Waugh after they somehow won at ETSU but missed him. Luckily, I ran into an assistant coach who gave me his cell phone number. Waugh answered and it was a great 7-8 minutes.
Imagine missing Coach K or Calipari's postgame presser and trying to get their cell phone number to get some quotes. Two words: No chance.

 

I do not think it has anything to do with "marginalizing old media."

Money is the only reason you need.

 

That sums up just about everybody. Some people like Beamer authentically feel that way, and were great guys w/access before everything blew up. And some are just assholes using the Interwebs and the Twitterz and the bloggers as an excuse to be dicks to everyone.

 

Same thing here, but it doesn't bother me too much. The most annoying thing is the number of seats that go to these people, especially on the road when it's usually a much smaller room.

The thing I've never understood is why they all want to be in there. I guess it's the volume of the things I have to attend, but there are very few occasions for which I'd voluntarily attend a news conference.

 

They now stream the postgame presser at home on my football beat on the large videoboard in the stadium. Doesn't change how I do anything because the coach I cover doesn't hold anything back and is candid in any setting. I do take full advantage of the fact that practice is open throughout the week (save for the Friday walkthrough). If anything, it's great blog fodder for the pre-game Saturday post, where I can spin some of my observations into what I think will happen during the game, and it leads to good post-game questions. "So, I saw you worked on a lot of empty backfield sets this week, why did you think that would work?, etc."