Melissa Stark’s sideline interview with Ravens coach John Harbaugh during the team’s Super Wild Card Round loss to the Cincinnati Bengals last week has received plenty of attention. Harbaugh was less than pleased with being asked what it would take to change quarterbacks.
Erin Andrews addressed interactions with players and athletes like that on Calm Down, the podcast she co-hosts with Charissa Thompson. While Andrews never mentioned Stark by name in her profanity-laced rant, she did say that coaches and players know when someone is trying to make a name for themselves.
“You don’t have to be an asshole,” the FOX Sports sideline reporter said. “How about this? Stop trying to make a name for yourself or be clickbait with these questions that tie these guys down or put them in a bind where you want to be the person in the press conference. Don’t do that. They’re not animals. They’re not pieces of meat.”
On Thursday’s edition of The Fan Morning Show on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh, Chris Mack objected to the idea that the interview was Stark trying to get attention.
“Melissa Stark has been doing this for years and I think is pretty good at it and I think those questions were all fair,” he said.
Co-host Dorin Dickerson saw it a little differently. In addition to his role on The Fan Morning Show, Dickerson is also a sideline reporter for the Pitt Panthers’ football radio network. He did not think Stark respected the reality of sideline interviews.
“What Melissa Stark did there, she was prying too much,” he said. “You know that you’re gonna get the run-of-the-mill answers when you ask a coach. The last thing a coach wants to do is talk to you after a bad first half.”
Colin Dunlap added that sideline interviews have value but are not necessary. He said that he enjoyed having access to coaches in the middle of a game, however, coaches could make a point of eliminating sideline interviews from future NFL TV contracts if they are a real problem. He doesn’t expect that would ever happen though.
“They could resist. They absolutely could resist with the TV rights deals and say ‘we’re just not doing it,’ but they know part of their bread is buttered by having that access. That’s built into the television contract.”
