Kin
New member
Arn said:
Sports and media have always existed in a delicate balance. For years the assumption was you provided access to journalists because the trade-off, the sports pages being filled with stuff about your team, was a positive for you as a tool of promotion. While that's still probably true around the world in some places, big North American sports teams are re-examining that relationship considering the decline of traditional avenues of media consumption. Especially when so many teams have ownership stakes, or at least business relations, with large media outlets that actually broadcast the games.
As you say, the Osaka thing brought two competing viewpoints to the fore. One, that the media presence is often more confrontational than helpful to athletes and two, that athletes(and teams) now are so interested in controlling the message that they actively resist independent media in favour of their own sanitized product.
I think there's a measure of truth to both ends of that and while we can debate whether those traditional media outlets and their traditional methods of player interactions(press conferences) yield anything in useful interactions for fans there's not much you can say if teams feel that those relationships are no longer in their interests. After all, it's not like movie studios let reporters on set and have their actors field questions after a bad take.
I remember Chuck Klosterman, writing about Steve Nash, made the point that for athletes, there's no upside to saying anything interesting to a reporter. If you say something perceived as negative you're "controversial" and there are dozens of things written about you and what you said and how it means and it becomes a big headache. Say something interesting but not controversial and the same reporters probably want another 15 minutes of your time tomorrow.
Again, I'm pretty agnostic on whether Teams wanting total control of their media message is a good or bad thing but it is a reality. And fans should probably know going forward that we're not likely to see off-the-cuff locker room talk at any point in the near future.
