Because they get paid to do it.
This goes double for New Zealand. God don’t care about our sports.
Ah, but…
One of my favorite scenes from that movie, and I’ve often wondered how true to life it is. Are rookie athletes really coached on how to speak in cliches? I wouldn’t be surprised if they were.
I remember, years ago, Charles Barkley (I think when he was with the Suns), gave a press conference after his team was was down 0-3 in a playoff series and facing elimination. He had a blackboard behind him with a set of numbered cliches - “1. Our backs are against the wall. 2. We have to take it one game at a time. 3. There is no tomorrow.” etc. Obviously, the players know when they’re speaking in cliches, I just wonder if they really are taught how to do it.
Ironically, though, Sir Charles was one of the rare superstar players who was willing to say exactly what he really thought without varnishing it (and he still does as an analyst, which makes him probably my favorite sports commebtaor out there. I love Charles Barkley).
I’m sure God cares very much, but given the mammoth stature of some of your rugby players, I reckon He’s too shit-scared to take sides.
The thing is- and I suspect we’re not going to agree on this- Sports isn’t news. It’s just not (IMO) important enough to deserve anything like the coverage and acknowledgement it gets in the media. The point I’m making is that if people spent less time reading drivel (as it’s generally written) about sports and more time reading about, well, stuff that’s actually important (there’s a reason petrol costs so much and it’s got nothing to do with who’s tipped to win the Bledisloe Cup, for example) things would be a lot better IMHO.
Even if they’re not taught how to do it, by now they’re used to watching other athletes do it. But I think media training is standard for rookies in the major sports leagues and I’m sure there are ways they are encouraged to handle interviews.
It would be a lot more accurate to say it’s not that important, as you do later. It’s hard to justify categorical assertions about what is and isn’t news.
That’s an entire thread in itself, I think. Personally, I think there is (at least theoretically) a difference between “News” and “Entertainment”. Anything related to sports is, IMO, closer to “Entertainment” than “News”. That’s not to say that you can’t have Entertainment News, but for the sake of consistency I’d also argue that what Celebrities are up to is just as unimportant from a “Hard News” perspective as “Sports Discussions” are.
Perhaps my responses in this thread will serve some educational purpose.
Or, maybe we sportspeople are all just stupid. I mean, I may be too stupid to realize just how stupid I am.
Punted from MPSIMS --> the Game Room
twicks, who always gives it 110%
They receive quite a lot of media training, as well as training in other areas of dealing with being a pro athlete. Major League Baseball has workshops for rookies every spring.
“Journos” tell us they interview athletes for us and when we say we don’t care if an athlete doesn’t give interviews but what he/she does on the field, the jounos tell us fans that we are stupid and ill informed.
Once in a while there is a good one like Chad Curtis of the 1999 Yankees refused to talk to Jim Gray because of an aggressive interview on gambling with Rose that Gray did earlier. Or the profanity filled tirade Tommy Lasorda gave when asked about an opposing player hitting three home runs.
Of course the NASCAR ones are good for the sheer commercialism of thanking the sponsors as much as possible. Which explains why Michael Waltrip always had a ride and sponsor and now owns a team, in addition to being a panelist on Speed TV. Or watch to see if they take a swig of Coke or Pepsi on camera (they get paid extra if they do). Once Coke actually did a commercial satirizing that…montages of drivers sipping a caramel colored carbonated sugar water on a surfboard, in a suit, on the moon, etc.
As far as people reading sports instead of the front page, I happily plead guilty. I used to pay great attention to politics. But then I realized 99% of it is garbage…Does anyone care about Bert Lance under Carter or selling AWACs to Saudi Arabia under Reagan? Huge stories for months way back when. Both parties are so slimy that it is best to ignore them as long as there is bread and circuses. Or beer and football to update Juvenal
When did that happen?
I encourage everyone to check posts #13 and 19 in that thread–many relevant points explained. I was just getting ready to say that athletes are quite often smarter than this thread gives them credit for, but that there are reasons to play these interviews close to the chest.
Besides the field-level concerns, for high-profile collegiate and professional organizations there is an interest in not pissing off any notable segment of the paying public. One off-rez political rant (or whatever) might hurt the bottom line for a couple years, management fears. You bet teams have media training.
Do you share the same vitriol for those who read books and magazines for entertainment?
No, not as a general rule. Why would I? 
Excellent posts, Happy Scrappy!
I just wish some athletes would use different cliches, then, or be intentionally off the wall with them in a way that won’t get them fined. Like:
“Life is like a box of chocolates, but we got the caramel fudge today - that’s a 1-run victory, you know. There ain’t no mountain high enough, but we’re climbing the standings on the shoulders of Giants. There’s no business like show business, but we’re in the big leagues here, and it’s a game of inches. We got the inches today, but maybe they’ll get them tomorrow. But anyway, I thank our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who guided my arm like a disciple of touchdowns. Hey reporter dude, do you know where to get some good mu shu pork around here? Don’t do drugs, just say no, kids! It is what it is, but we’re keepin on keepin on, ya know? Kick the tires and light the fires, it’s boogie time. For real, I gotta bounce. Catch ya on the flip, journo.”
Here’s a recent blog post from Mark Cuban on the role of media in sports. His take is that, from his perspective as a team owner, he doesn’t see the need to accommodate beat writers from websites because A) the team can disseminate such information themselves and control the message, and B) the web journos are more motivated by garnering page views than substantive journalism. He makes an exception for print and television journos because they cater to specific segments of his fanbase (older people).
Have you seen the people that read magazines? It’s frightening. If I was Supreme Editor And Arbiter Of What Was And Wasn’t Newsworthy For The Entire Universe there would be no entertainment in the mainstream media, with the possible exception of The Economists, because petrol prices are the one and only thing anybody anywhere should read about.
Now I’m off to tell the posters in a kitten thread that cats are a waste of time, the people who like them are frightening, and all right thinking people know that there are more important things in the world than cats - like petrol prices, for example. Why talk about cats when petrol prices are so high? Where’s their priorities!
Unfortunately your analogy fails because my problem isn’t with sports in general, it’s with people confusing “sports” for “news”. There’s a whole paper full of actual (well, theoretically) news and putting a huge “sports” section in there just muddies the waters further between “news” and “entertainment”. If you want to read sports magazines or celebrity gossip magazines or whatever, fine, go ahead- but don’t pretend it’s “News”.