The NFL will restrict media access for a second consecutive season amid the coronavirus pandemic, only allowing team employees inside locker rooms when players are present.
Why is this important: Sports teams already operate as media companies, producing content, growing viewership and releasing updates. Keeping reporters at bay gives them even more narrative control.
- In the past, teams and players relied on beat reporters to amplify their voice and relay their message to the masses. Now they can talk directly to millions of fans via social media.
- To be clear: Independent media will still have in-person access to athletes and coaches via press conferences, so it’s not like they’ll be inaccessible this season. But the cloakroom is forbidden.
What they say : “The relationships built during locker room access and reporting [therein] …is at the heart of NFL beat coverage,” said Lindsay Jones, president of the Pro Football Writers of America.
- “It allows fans to have a deeper understanding of the players beyond their performance on the pitch,” added Jones, who writes for The Athletic. “NFL coverage will suffer without it.”
The big picture: One of the greatest innovations in sports writing came in the 1940s, when Dick Young of the New York Daily News began collecting post-game quotes from players in their lockers, adding color to his stories.
- The report has continued to evolve since then, as has the balance of power between journalist and athlete. Why give a quote to a writer when you can tweet it yourself?
- Closing the locker rooms to members of the media makes perfect sense as a precaution, and it has been described as a temporary measure. But when access is removed, it tends not to be restored, at least not fully.
The last word: “The ability to show up inside a locker room is nothing short of a miracle,” wrote Bryan Curtis of The Ringer last year. “That’s why [sportswriters are] fear…coronavirus will be the means by which it will be eliminated forever.”
Go further: The evolution of sports writing
