As you’ve probably read elsewhere, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban recently banned bloggers from locker room access at American Airlines Arena, an edict that leaves the Dallas Morning News’ Tim MacMahon on the outside looking in. Cuban, via his Blog Maverick, stresses the decision wasn’t bourne of prejudice against a new medium, but rather “what I didn’t like was that the Morning News was getting a competitive advantage simply because they were the Dallas Morning News. I am of the opinion that a blogger for one of the local newspapers is no better or worse than the blogger from the local high school, from the local huge Mavs fan, from an out of town blogger. I want to treat them all the same.”
In this instance, however, “treating them all the same” means denying access. Citing a cramped locker room and this zillions of blogs in existence, Cuban figures granting credentials to every Tom, Dick & Blogger to be an unworkable solution.
Except this isn’t just a case of every Tom, Dick & Blogger. MacMahon’s coverage is of a relatively high quality, and while the vehicle for delivery might be relatively new, he’s every bit as real a journalist as his print media colleagues. And that, writes True Hoop’s Henry Abbott, might be what caught Cuban’s attention.
MacMahon believes that the policy was born merely as a reaction to the fact that McMahon recently wrote a blog post that was somewhat critical of Avery Johnson and somewhat sympathetic to a website calling for Johnson to be fired.
Cuban says he has not read that blog. (This could be true. But this is the best-read Mavericks blog. Cuban is not only known to be an obsessive consumer of Mavericks-related media who reports he gets news alerts when his name is mentioned online. He is also a blogger himself, as well as a major player in a blog search engine company.)
Hardwood Paroxysm mulls how a team might tackle this issue, though adding “I hope Cuban, in a pretty clear attempt at punishing a guy and then making a subsequent point, hasn’t just set back the medium by three years.”
I have absolutely no doubt that if the Magic were to give Third Quarter Collapse access that they would be thrilled with the coverage. It’s not like Ben Q. is going to go in and ask a bunch of improper questions. He’s not going to turn around and rip the team unfairly. He’s a fan, for God’s sake. And giving him access is only going to provide another way for your fans to feel “involved” with their team.
On the flip side, there should be a separation. For starters, I think at some point there’s got to be a level of integration, albeit on a sliding scale, for access between bloggers and newspaper guys. And giving mainstream media the “extra” coverage of being in the locker room with Dirk Nowitski’s Dirk Diggler swinging back and forth will give newspaper folks the feeling that they have something more than bloggers. Good for the beat reporters. Bully for them!. Next, if you give bloggers access, but limit it, it’s going to put the PR people a little bit more at ease. It’s a transition-oriented move. It’s a compromise. It means the PR folks for the team won’t be running around their office screaming as though the bloggers have stripped off their clothes, covered themselves in warpaint, and started hacking players to death while asking for autographs. Finally, because there should be a line between bloggers and mainstream media. Bloggers should be able to cover the games just as much as newspaper reporters because as Cuban said, it gets a team “as much coverage as possible.” There’s no downside to having more coverage. But there should be a separation between newspaper access and blogger access, just like there’s separation between what bloggers do and what reporters do. And the locker room is, in my opinion, a pretty good start for the line. Not so much for what it actually provides, but for what it represents.
At least one reader has asked for my take on this (“has SXSW delayed the Cuban crucifixition?”) and I think the answer is so fucking obvious, I can’t believe no one else has come up with it already. The NBA should appoint Eklund as their liason to the Hoops Blogosphere and let him sort the whole thing out.