As a former athlete, I sometimes struggle to understand the role of the media in sports. The blame for these struggles falls mostly on my own shoulders. At my current age (23), I'm just old enough to remember the pre-Internet era, but young enough to have witnessed the technology boom, and have lived most of my life in the information age. I understand that as recently as 15 years ago, the sports media landscape was vastly different than it is now. There was no blogging, no twitter, no fan websites. From what I glean, this meant that in order to get exclusive scoops and interviews, journalists had to be there, often following athletes around and possibly traveling with them. Back then, most anything an athlete had to say was relayed by a journalist through some media source, which often added some context to the quotes and ideas. Though I can't confirm, I'd imagine that artistic (or journalistic) liscence existed to a greater degree, allowing skills and talents to shine through, leading to media and journalism legends being created based on their ability to deliver powerful stories.
Times have changed.
Due mostly to the 24 hour media cycle, everything has become a story, everything is labeled as food for thought or topic for debate, even when it's painfully obvious that media outlets are grasping for straws in hopes of a ratings uptick or more pageviews. I might not like it, but I understand it. Everyone has to make a living, as a consumer of the product, I'm mostly at peace with what the market for information has become. But a part of me, the former athlete referenced above, still can't wrap my head around it completely, which is somewhat ironic considering that athletes are the fuel that keep the vehicle of sports media going.
I played football in high school and college, not at a major D1A (FBS) program, but D1AA (FCS) so I wasn't exposed to the level of media exposure that athletes at larger programs experience. I also wasn't a prominent player on my team, in terms of having to answer to reporters, or receiving much recognition outside of my teamates. Maybe I don't understand the spotlight because I've never been in it, and I'm just projecting my ideal hypothetical Self into the place of others, which always leads to skewed criticism.
Regardless of all that, I've been inside the locker room, I've put in the time, I've made the effort, I've felt the despair of defeat and the joy of victory, I've held hands and prayed with people I've called my brothers, I know what it is to be on a team. I know that what goes on inside locker rooms can't readily be understood by outsiders. I've read media and press reviews of teammates and the team in general only to come to the same conclusion: These guys really don't know what they're talking about. Positive or negative, no piece of text could really capture the feel and aura of a team. What goes on in the locker room and what goes through the collective heads and hearts of the players is often an experience completely independent of how that group is portrayed to the outside world. Maybe I'm letting nostalgia cloud my judgement, but where the media fits into that equation isn't still quite clear to me.
That might be part of the allure. Trying to package an indescribable ennui and presenting it to a public that largely won't ever get a chance to experience it. Bringing the money paying fans closer to the athletes that they celebrate in their available time. Connecting fans emotionally to teams, connecting teams to cities, birthing stars and superstars, creating legends and crafting legacies. As far as that goes, I'm again mostly at peace with what sports media tries to accomplish.
The more I write, the harder it is to pin down where my issues lie. It all makes sense on paper. It's a machine, maybe not finely tuned and smoothly operating, but a machine nonetheless.
And--what?! It didn't fucking save any of those last 3 paragraphs I wrote? Are you fucking kidding me?
Whatever-- abridged version. Athletes are the fuel of the machine, whoms goal is ultimately to make money. Sports media are a branch of the machine that exist solely to generate revenue in the form of news cycles that amp up interest, and therefore financial support, for the teams. So why do athletes owe it to the media to grant insight into their inner workings, knowing full well that it could lead to a negative response due to biased reporting? Because at the end of the day, the media is working to make the team money, which makes the athlete money. Unless you're an NCAA athlete, where the revenue you generate from your sport is commensurate to someone having scored really highly on their SATs (not to demerit the worth of academic scholarships, but the immediate revenue generated by top performing athletes for the institution often outweighs the same contribution from top students, which, in the interest of fair compensation, I find to be wrong).
That's the short version, if you were hoping for something longer, you can thank this crapp. (Get it? Crap + app?... Ok I'll stop)
