Will locker room access ever return in MLB & NHL?

Forget the NFL & NBA, those were lost causes long before March. But it feels more and more like baseball & hockey, sports where it's actually possible to get to know dudes and work a room, are going to use this as an excuse for permanent changes if shit ever returns to something resembling normal.

I thought the NHL, as the clear no. 4 in North America, would return fairly quickly to opening rooms, but they've already locked out all independent media from the bubbles and everything is being done by Zoom. In my neck of the woods, which includes a team run by MSG and a team whose GM is Lou Lamoriello, it's hard to envision them ever loosening the reins.

I also thought MLB had a decent shot at returning to pre-pandemic access, at least for BBWAA members, b/c the clubhouse access is negotiated in the CBA. But there's no real sense teams are doing anything more than just providing the manager and a player of their choosing before the game, and this column by BBWAA president Paul Sullivan on how he got locked out of covering a game at Comiskey Park (yeah, it's still Comiskey to me) is quite discouraging. (Sullivan and anyone else in Missouri, including Cards beat writer Derrick Goold, were barred from Comiskey by the White Sox, whose quarantining criteria is stricter than the one used by the state of Illinois)

Column: After my own temporary ban from the White Sox, I feel Mike Clevinger’s pain

BBWAA cards aren't good for admittance this year (only 35 credentialed members of the media are allowed in on day passes), and if the president of the BBWAA can't get the BBWAA to interject on his behalf when he's rejected access, what hope do the rest of us have? With no end to the pandemic in sight, it's pretty easy to envision the same criteria being in place next year, the last year of the CBA. There's some hope that players realize clubhouse access is one way to try and ensure they get their side of the story across in a media landscape dominated by writers and broadcasters compromised by their employment w/MLB rights-holders, but that's pretty naive. They hate us in there and would love nothing more than to see us banned forever. At that point, we're just stenographers. Thoughts?

 

I'm highly skeptical. Every pro team has its own in-house content crew for both articles and video content. Maybe you arrange some one-on-ones with the TV/radio rightsholders.

Beyond that, I think we'll see something more in line with Europe, specifically the Premier League. Open locker rooms don't happen there.

 

If life ever returns to normal, I could see the leagues sticking with the Zoom access for postgame and having looser access during practices. The media can be a pest to these athletes, but I believe that many can see a benefit from giving reporters a bite of the apple. Also, part of controlling the narrative is not having a bunch of bored/angry reporters that are trying to find a unique story outside of a Zoom call.

I could also see the league saying that things will remain as-in. But then one media-starved team loosens things up a little... and then another... and then eventually the cards fall. I don't think that we will ever return to the ways that things were. I also don't think that things forever mimic 2020. However, college sports are a whole different deal...

 

Maybe I missed it, but why exactly was Sullivan banned from the White Sox game?

 

I think there's a general fear of this sticking, but my gut is it stays temporary because of the benefit to teams and players. With analytics and film galore, it doesn't take an expert to see why someone is good or bad. You can just look at the film and the numbers and they speak for themselves. Players need the access to give their side of things (offensive linemen are a perfect example for this). Without access, everyone essentially becomes a columnist. And I really don't think teams and players are willing to stomach that.

 

I think the media will be allowed in only as a condition of the respective CBA's. The players don't want us in there and the owners surely don't.

 

Ban the media from clubhouses and you give the jock-sniffers less time to do that and you give the good journalists more time to break investigative stuff that will make the league and the players look bad. Say, maybe, a PED ring. And there won’t be the personal ties there between player and reporter to cloud things, either. The leagues and the players are exposed to more risk that way.

 

Do players think beyond their own desires here, though? CC Sabathia was as good a guy as NY had the last 10+ years. Send anyone to his locker and he'd be amenable and give good quotes. And in a NY Post interview, he said one of the first things he'd change as commissioner is closing the locker rooms to the press. If guys who don't recoil at the sight of us are thinking this, what are the rest of them thinking? Tony Clark, a good media guy, is running the MLBPA and the upper management has some former scribes in key positions, so it's not all terrible, But the MLBPA has a shitton of other things to worry about for 2022 and I suspect the only thing most of the players and the owners will agree upon is shutting the doors to us.

 

Once the World Baseball Classic started, the MLB players were, like, no clubhouse access for media?! Can we do this all season?

Clark has been made aware that one reason GMs and analytics have become so prevalent in baseball coverage is that players have become increasingly reluctant to cooperate, even before the pandemic, and we'll go to another source to get a story if they don't want to cooperate. But, with team- and league-owned media, social media and other ventures (Players Tribune, Trevor Bauer's vlog, etc.), it's not as if players need the traditional media to burnish their image.

Selig read newspapers and fought hard to preserve access for baseball writers. Manfred is not nearly as concerned about that.

 

Or anything else regarding the health of baseball.

 

Seriously doubt anything changes in the NHL. Part of it is Lou Lamoriello, who is airtight with everything. More food for thought: The NHL's players union pushed for the "unfit to play" BS, which is even more absurd that merely "upper body" and "lower body" injuries. Granted, for now, it's also about covering for any player who might contract COVID-19. Usually, the TV cameras capturing players "unfit to play" in the stands helps rule out COVID-19.

Now that they have those reins, you think they're loosening them anytime soon? Until the owners start losing out on a share of money on gambling, because not knowing about injured players until just before faceoff affects those bets and revenue for owners, it won't change.

 

Access in all sports has been shrinking inversely with the amount of money in the TV contract.

There was a time when you could actually spend an hour with a driver or crew chief just shooting the bull without a PR person looming over your shoulder or having to have a story angle in mind. But with so many sponsor obligations, those guys don't even have an hour to themselves any more, let alone one for an ink-stained scribe.

Plus, TV has specific interview rules written to their deal. Drivers are only required by the league to stick around for a quick "so what happened today?" query by the pit reporter, but can tell the rest of us to go (do rude things), which Kurt and Kyle Busch made perfectly clear to me on several occasions.

It's come down to a 10-minute gang bang at the hauler, or the mandatory media room stop on Friday. If you're not writing a gamer, you're scrambling.

Gone are the days when you could bend the ear of a Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt after qualifying or on pit lane before the start of a race, with no one else around.

Like you said, the locker room or the batting cage is where you get the stuff that the online content aggregators can't get. Anybody can get on Zoom or get the team's releases and "cover" a sport. But you can't actually write news without access.