Saturday night before I laid down and tried to fall asleep to the sounds of various fireworks exploding around my neighborhood, I did a quick scroll of Twitter just to see what I had missed throughout the day. I stumbled upon a story from GolfChannel.com that a friend must have retweeted. Otherwise, I never would have seen it.
As someone that doesn’t know much about golf and doesn’t pretend to, there is a lot I have to catch up on. For instance, who is Bryson? So I clicked on the link and read the story by Will Gray.
It turns out Bryson DeChambeau, a man with a name that predetermined he would either be a professional golfer or the villain from a 80s movie about windsurfing, made a bad shot and responded by chucking his club into a sand trap. It is a harmless reaction and frankly, something most people that have heard of Bryson DeChambeau have probably done 10,000 times.
DeChambeau was embarrassed though. He wasn’t embarrassed that he lashed out at sand. He was embarrassed that a cameraman captured the whole thing, so he did what anyone that grew up in a country club learns to do when they embarrass themselves – stuck his finger in the face of someone that had nothing to do with it and blamed them.
Asked about his confrontation with the cameraman during a post-round press conference, DeChambeau could not have sounded like a bigger asshole if he tried.
First, he dropped the classic “I feel like if I don’t do my best, I’ve let everybody down,” which is the “I’m sorry if you were offended” of the sports world. Next, he made a mistake every idiot makes at some point in their life when someone asks them to explain why they are being an idiot – they answer honestly and reveal they are being an idiot because they don’t know how not to be.
“He was literally watching me the whole entire way up after getting out of the bunker, walking up next to the green. And I just was like, ‘Sir, what is the need to watch me that long?’” DeChambeau said. “I mean, I understand it’s his job to video me, but at the same point, I think we need to start protecting our players out here compared to showing a potential vulnerability and hurting someone’s image. I just don’t think that’s necessarily the right thing to do.”
Will Gray, GolfChannel.com
Look, I’ll explain the point I am about to make. The audience it is primarily intended for though should know exactly what I mean though when I say SCREW THE PLAYERS!
No matter what your role in the sports media is, you don’t work for the players. That doesn’t mean your job is to make them look bad, but you are there to document or react to the interesting things that happen. If you’re dealing with someone as sensitive and dumb as Bryson DeChambeau, that can create an uncomfortable situation or two. You’re not the one that needs to back down.
The sports media’s duty is to the audience. Your job is to bring the action to the people that tune in for it. Then, it is to entertain them the next day when they want to hear what someone else thinks about it. Ratings and clicks will determine what events and which players move the needle. You don’t need to go creating stories or digging for irrelevant dirt, but logic tells you those are the players that will get the most coverage, and thus the most scrutiny.
“But Demetri,” you’re probably thinking to yourself, “I have to go in these locker rooms after every game. Having access to these players is crucial to my livelihood. I have to listen and respect their wishes and concerns.”
Do you?
I’m not a fool. Sports media is a business just like any other. Working for an official team or league broadcast likely comes with some strings attached. Expectations are probably laid out for your station or network before becoming a team or league’s broadcast partner. And even if they aren’t, coaches and players should have the right to tell you things off the record.
A player throwing his club in the middle of a golf course though? During a tournament that is on national TV? That’s fair game. Criticizing a conservative call that killed any chance of a comeback? That’s your job. Talking about a player getting arrested or publishing a mugshot? That information is already public record.
Players and the media serve two very different masters. Our jobs may mean we intersect, but they are nothing alike. A player isn’t lying when he yells at a reporter or host that if he hasn’t been in a huddle or asked to take a buzzer-beating shot, then that reporter or host has no idea what the pressure is like. I would counter that the player doesn’t understand what it is like to sit in front of a microphone for three or four hours, sometimes all alone, and try to entertain an audience. Both are hard, but not at all for the same reason.
A player can tell you what he thinks is fair and what is not. A talk show host can tell you what a player did or didn’t do. Neither knows the solution to the other’s problem with absolute certainty.
Finally, and this is really important, sometimes a player or coach needs to be reminded that you aren’t the one doing a bad job. Bryson DeChambeau wouldn’t be yelling at a cameraman that he needs to be protected if he didn’t do something he knew warranted criticism.
Stakes aren’t as high for a professional athlete’s decisions and actions as they are for a politician’s. Both operate in a spotlight though. That means the men and women in both professions have signed up to accept that scrutiny comes along with poor or baffling performance.
The headline for this piece is admittedly provocative, but really that is just to draw eyeballs. I tend to be a players-first guy. I hate hearing fans whining about what players “owe” them. On principle, I will never side with the owners in a labor negotiation.
I don’t view this as an issue where a player needs protection or is owed the benefit of the doubt. Bryson DeChambeau getting in the face of a cameraman is no different than any other Karen demanding to speak to a manager. It’s an asshole that didn’t get his way and having a tantrum about it.
We have to deal with that sometimes in the sports media. Part of this relationship is listening to those complaints. Instant capitulation isn’t part of the deal though. So if Bryson DeChambeau is going to say the media needs to protect him, it’s 100% okay to tell him to stop being so stupid.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
