Aaron Nagler, co-founder of the popular Green Bay Packers blog CheeseheadTV.com, is one of many sports bloggers across the country who have been able to ditch the seat in front of a television screen and get right into the press box.
Nagler and Green Bay Press Gazette writer Kareen Copeland at the Green Bay Packers 2010 Shareholder's Meeting. Photo from CheeseheadTV.com.
There has been a definitive line between bloggers like Nagler and professional journalists covering a team. Nagler has been able to aid in the blurring of that line by acquiring press credentials to cover NFL games in the same atmosphere as those writing for the newspaper – credentials that were earned, not given.
“I had built up a good reputation with a good number of people who cover the NFL on a national scale, people like Sam Farmer of the L.A. Times and Bob Glauber at Newsday here in New York,” Nagler explained. “When my initial credential request was denied, many of them called the league office and said, ’Hey, this guy really knows his stuff. He's legit, you should let him in.’ After they got a few of those types of calls, Mike Signora at the NFL called me, just to get to know me a little bit. Later that week I was credentialed and have been for everything since.”
Nagler went on to explain that it was the relationships and professionalism that led him to be credentialed, not necessarily his site’s traffic, which lags just behind Packers newspaper sites like JSOnline.com and the Green Bay Press Gazette.
“For me, and I've said this to every blogger who asks for my advice, it's all about how you present yourself as a professional and the relationships involved,” said Nagler. “You can have major traffic to your site, but if you're a rude S.O.B., teams will have no interest in credentialing you.”
While some bloggers like Nagler use their relationships with the news media and the league itself, writers like Brian Cook of MGoBlog.com, a popular University of Michigan blog, have simply been in the right place at the right time.
“I was in the WTKA studio for a show about the demise of the Ann Arbor News when Richard Deitsch--then in town for a Knight-Ridder fellowship--mischievously asked Michigan Sports Information Director Bruce Madej if they'd give MGoBlog a press pass,” said Cook. “He said yes on the spot and when we followed up he made good on that.”
A key to using the passes, according to Cook, is knowing who should be using them. Despite being the guy that got his blog press passes for University of Michigan football games, he knew that in order for them to be used properly, he had to find someone with the experience.
“I decided I wasn't the right person to be in the press box and brought on Tim Sullivan, who had worked for WOLV and was running another blog, to be the guy who did that stuff,” Cook explained. “They gave us partial game access in year one, citing the smallness of the press box, and full access in year two.”
While Nagler and Cook have been the beneficiaries of knowing the right people and being professional enough to allow the NFL and University of Michigan to give out press passes, several NFL media relations directors had different opinions, most requiring extensive journalism experience.
“Our policy is to credential established news outlets or established writers who have a history of covering the NFL,” said Dan Edwards, Public Relations Director of the Jacksonville Jaguars. “Simply writing for a web site, even if it is ‘respectable,’ does not necessarily ensure that credential requests will be fulfilled.”
On the same page as Edwards were Jack Brennan and Rich Dalrymple of the Bengals and Cowboys, respectively.
“With all due respect to independent bloggers, ‘a respectable site’ is just not enough,” said Brennan. “Our players and coaches are pros with very tight schedules, and we ask them to deal only with media pros. If an independent or part-time blogger wants to build a reputation that will earn him or her respect, I think he or she must start at a lower level and build slowly.”
“Our policy is that we only issue media credentials to websites that are affiliated with the local major daily newspapers in our market or the visiting team’s market, affiliated with the broadcast television networks that are rights holders for NFL football games or the most prominently known national sites and these sites must have a track record of covering NFL games all over the league on a weekly basis,” said Dalrymple.
However, Dalrymple went on to explain that part of the problem was that space in the press boxes wasn’t adequate enough to allow everybody, which means that there was no way to be completely fair in deciding who gets in and who does not.
“We simply do not have the space in our press box on game days…to issue credentials to every blog site or website that has an interest in covering the Dallas Cowboys,” explained Dalrymple. “There is just a large abundance of them that exist, and there is no way from a logistical aspect for us to be able to accommodate all of them equally and fairly.”
One thing is for certain – there is no black and white in selecting who is allowed to enter the press boxes, and newspapers are included. Not one of the NFL media relations directors specifically said that any newspaper would be able to attend. Each prospective writer is looked at individually, regardless of the medium in which they write. That gray area could result in a blogger in one city getting credentials and one of equal caliber in another city getting denied. Newspaper reporters are not exempt from this rule.
One aspect that was only mentioned by one team, the Baltimore Ravens, was that the writer had to be paid in order to be considered. Since many bloggers are not paid directly to do their work, a situation like Baltimore’s can make things very difficult to bloggers to get in the press box.
“Each blogger is addressed individually,” said Ravens media relations director Kevin Byrne. “Some basics we seek: The person is paid to report, size of the audience, and the history of the reporter. After we do some vetting, we invite to cover a non-game activity and we then go from there.”
The Chicago Bears were one of two teams, the Ravens being the other, to allow writers to attend a non-game activity.
“We do accommodate non-affiliated bloggers to a day of regular media access at one of our training camp practices,” said Bears Media Relations Director Jim Christman. “We did that for the first time last year and plan to continue the practice going forward.”
While most teams cited the requirement of high site traffic and writing experience, the teams like the Bears and Ravens show that bloggers are slowly gaining access to team-related events. The success of bloggers like Nagler and Cook show that given the right circumstances, bloggers can indeed have the same advantages as
professional journalists.
Video: Sean Burton of L.A. Clippers discusses blogger credentials.
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