It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing situation. What’s the downside if some percentage of players don’t talk to the media? There will always be plenty of outgoing, personable athletes who like the spotlight and will talk at length. Let the ones who don’t like talking just sit it out. They might make less in endorsements, but that should be their choice, not the league’s.
For the fans who like these interviews, think of how much better they’d be if all the athletes being interviewed actually wanted to be there.
But the OPs question opens up the possibility that no athletes would do interviews, and that’s where it starts to have an impact. Because, let’s face it, no athlete wants to do the interviews they do (or the appearances, the ads they have to make for the team or their sponsor, the glad handing they have to do pre and post games). I’ve worked with a couple of national sports team, and they HATE that stuff. They do it because it’s in their contract.
Post game media access is a legitimate part of an athlete’s scope of work.
Instead of aggressively pursuing the terms of their work contract, employers should aggressively protect the health and welfare of the people working for them, whether it’s stadium staff, officials, on field workforce, or players. This includes mental health, and no part of an entertainment worker’s responsibilities should be considered so important that the employer demand they be put in harm’s way to fulfill them.
Part of a professional athlete’s job is promoting his team. I think there’s a simple compromise though, athletes shouldn’t have to talk to the media, and if they don’t then they don’t have to get paid either.
But even still - let’s suppose that, indeed, no athletes ever do postgame interviews again - how much is that going to affect the income? I can’t think of a single sports fan in the world who ever said, “I was going to buy that Lakers jersey and renew my Lakers season tickets, but now that LeBron said he refuses to do interviews anymore, I’m not going to buy Lakers gear anymore. I NEED those interviews.”
The overwhelmingly No. 1 factor in whether a team makes money or not is its performance on the field.
Why?
I’ve never heard anything particularly interesting from an athlete in a post-game interview. “I gave it 110%” “It was really tough, but I gave it my all.” “I’d like to thank my mamma and Jesus.” “_____ was a great competitor.” “I’m honored to play in ____ city/tournament/stadium with so much history.” Blah blah blah.
It seems silly to me that they’d rather have her not play than have her play, but not talk unless she really wants to.
Along with that, I’ve always wondered just what answer reporters expect from athletes when they ask them questions like, “You had a rotten game today, throwing 4 interceptions and completing less than 30% of your passes, want to comment?”
At the top levels I think it’s fine to mandate interviews. Someone who is uncomfortable with that can make an adequate living playing in the minor tournaments which don’t have interviews. They won’t make as much money, but that’s the way it goes. There are lots of limiting factors which filter out people from getting to the top levels. Not wanting to talk to reporters is fine, but it will limit how far you can go in the sport.
Part of the reason the top levels have so much prize money for the athletes is because of the media coverage. The reporters covering the event need more to do than just watch the game and report on the scores. These interviews give the reporters an opportunity to gain more insight into the athletes and generate more media coverage, which generates more viewership, which makes for more prize money. Without the interviews, I would imagine fewer reporters would be covering the game in the first place.
Yeah, the post-game interviews are usually pretty pointless. I get that they want to maximize exposure but they ask the same dumb questions every time and get the same dumb answers.
An even better compromise is that the team can fire the player, cancel the work contract entirely. That’s what normal employers do to employees who fail to complete their work.
If I had an all-star athlete on my team who didn’t want to talk to the media I’d be fine with just not paying him. But for most of the players, sure, go ahead and fire them.
And whether or not any individual, or anybody at all cares about what is said in these press conferences doesn’t matter, it’s all part of the ritual that makes for loyal fans who spend their money attending games and buying sponsor’s products.
Exactly. Even when I was a kid, and a teenager, and a massive fan of the Packers and Brewers, I recognized that the players almost never* said anything interesting or meaningful in those press conferences. The press clearly believes that they are important, and the teams and leagues seem to think that they’re important, but I don’t think that sports, or sports fandom, would be diminished in any meaningful way if those press conferences and locker room interviews ceased to exist.
*- Two exceptions are when a player (or a coach) goes off during a postgame press conference, or when you have one of the rare players who is witty and willing to say funny or outrageous things.
I’m a racing fan, and my perspective in that realm is that fielding a race car ranges from “tremendously expensive” to “this is the GDP of many small island nations.” Nobody “deserves” a seat in a racing car, you have to earn it by 1) being fast and 2) playing the sponsorship game, because without sponsors nobody has a job. Plenty of fast drivers never make it big because they lack the charisma or the patience to slather their bodies in sponsor logos and answer stupid questions with a smile on their face.
Auto racing is different from football which is different from tennis, but at the end of the day, if someone wants to make a living playing a game that most people do for fun at their own expense, it’s not unreasonable to me to expect them to have to jump through some hoops and do a little song and dance every once in a while. The money to pay them doesn’t come from nowhere.
I don’t disagree. I almost never pay attention to player or coach interviews because they are bland. The media makes it worse (which is part of Osaka’s point) because if a player makes an honest comment the media blasts them; I’m thinking of the Jets QB who said “I’m seeing ghosts”.
But somebody is watching those interviews and buying the fan magazines.
To make matters worse, Marshawn Lynch, for instance, indeed complied with the interview requirements, but was then fined by the NFL for giving answers that were too short.
Can someone who watches post-game interviews explain what it is that they find interesting about them? I got out of the habit forty-odd years ago when I became aware that no useful information was being imparted.
Osaka has handled this all quite well, as far as I can tell. The tournament organizers are certainly within their legal rights to just point at the rules and tell her to pound sand, but they do run the risk of just looking like assholes.
She seems to be trying to deal with a mental health issue that has been bothering her for years. She requested accommodations prior to the tournament starting. She did the on-court interview after her first match. She was fined for not attending the press conference (as specified in the contract). The tournament dragging her on social media was probably not the best move.
That’s an interesting question, particularly since I believe Naomi Osaka makes most of her money from endorsements, rather than tournament winnings. If I sponsor someone to endorse my products, I expect a certain level of “public relations” from them. Showing up to talk with the media (with my product’s logos prominently displayed,) is a big part of that. And there’s no time that an athlete is more highly sought after than at a big game or tournament.
I’m sure that (generic professional athlete) could negotiate contracts and endorsements so they wouldn’t have to do anything more than wear the logos and have their photos taken for ads, but that won’t make them the world’s highest-paid female athlete, either. It’s really a question of how they want to capitalize on their talent.
