Meeting a Deadline in Sports Journalism

This past Wednesday I attended the Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Houston Rockets game at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Oh.  I subsequently wrote a blog on the game and enjoyed the process.  It made me think about how I have read 10s of thousands of recaps on sports games but have never wrote one.  Doing so made me appreciate the process behind all of the recaps I read.

While I had no problem meeting the 11:00 pm deadline, there were some challenges.  The first was that I really had to be be observant of EVERYTHING.  I had to watch the action on the floor, but I also had to constantly check my blackberry for stats, make notes of key plays, and make a point to pay very close attention to injuries.  There were not any injuries during the game, but had there been I would have had to have made sure to check up on the latest injury statuses.  And amidst all of these challenges, I had to ignore the goings on in the arena.  NBA franchises make a point to entertain fans so that they will come back which makes for a lot to block out.

I also had to do my homework going into the game.  I could not just show up at the game 10 minutes before tip with my Nachos and 15 dollar soda.  I had to read up on each team to get background on the players, recent results, and any injuries.  I really had to know what to look for before any of the action even began!
The last problem facing a sports journalist with an early deadline such as I had is competition with online sources.  I was unable to include any quotes in my recap.  Had there been more time, I would have been able to hear press conference quotes.  Fortunately for me, there were not any stoppages in play or overtime.  If either or both of those occurred, I would have had a much harder time meeting my deadline as I would have been afforded less than an hour between the end of the game and my deadline.  Online sources can always add quotes to recaps or hold off putting recaps up until they are ready.  For a journalist for a newspaper, what is in by that deadline is what is printed because the papers have to be delivered so soon after.


I think that this experience gave me a much better perspective as to what sports journalists are facing.  And being the sports nut that I am, there are a lot of articles to be read that will now be appreciated much more by myself!