Depending on who you ask, in-game coaching interviews can be doom and gloom. Guys are getting asked to answer questions in the heat of battle when they should be focused on the game. If they lose enough of those games, they lose their jobs.
But there is something to be said about those interviews connecting personalities to the fans. Just ask Rachel Nichols.
“I think that making the sport more accessible to more people is a good thing. The XFL was not something I was by nature super interested in, but I like the way it’s being presented. I like the access you got”, said Nichols.
“The media is a conduit to the fan. The media is just the vehicle for fans to get access to the game. I think anytime fans can get a little bit more access to the game, it’s a good thing.”
Most of the interviews are nothing and inconsequential, but you do get a couple great ones every now and then. Greg Popovich, Rick Carlisle, Brad Stevens come to mind when thinking of a few. They occasionally give you a moment.
Rachel Nichols has found that doing the work and her homework ahead of time gets rewarded in interview moments. The pint size reporter has covered the NBA for two decades. Every player in the league came in under her watchful eye, and she has talked to them year in and year out to make sure she knows her stuff.
Nichols made it a point to take her show, The Jump, on the road to stay in the know. She wasn’t just sitting idly behind a studio desk and relying on reports. She was on the ground earning sweat equity.
“That was definitely not the norm for a studio show at ESPN during the season, just to regularly jump and go to games.,” explained Nichols. “You can’t legit talk about all these guys and say, with authority, that you know what you’re talking about, if you haven’t talked to them.”
The player relationship provided Nichols with viewer credibility. It was a way to communicate that she has been talking to this player for years. It gave fans more of a buy-in into what she was doing. It was just her and a player having a conversation, nothing forced.
“It should just feel like a conversation. It should feel like sitting around talking about basketball, because those are the best interviews I do. A lot of the good interviews I do, I’m not even asking questions. At the end of every question, I’ll bring something up and then they jump in. That, to me, is just as good an interview as a who, what, why, or where question.”
Rachel Nichols believes that today’s players are more primed for primetime interviews than the players from yesteryear. Today’s players grew up with cell phones that recorded video. Magic Johnson didn’t have that luxury. He was interviewed by local news outlets here and there, but he wasn’t in his room or classroom in front of a recording device every single day. He was still Magic, but he’s an exception.
“Many of today’s young superstars have been in tens of thousands of videos by the time they graduate high school. By the time players get to the league, they’re much more used to video and what it means to sit in front of a camera and talk. They’re much more comfortable. They’re much more themselves because they’re not afraid of the camera,” said Nichols. “I think that the NBA in this era encourages all this stuff.
Nichols has always been lauded for asking the tough questions. She just looks at it as asking the question that is sitting right in front of you. She doesn’t ambush people and often she’ll give fair warning depending on the topic.
“I will tell them on the way in – hey, I’m not shying away from this. Mark Cuban, after that sexual harassment report came out, came on the show that day and I was very open with him. I said, you want to do this because I’m going to ask you the tough questions.”
Nichols believes the NBA gets it. The NFL? Maybe, not so much. She thinks being straightforward is the best route to run.
“If you were in a situation where you messed up, that’s the smartest thing to do. Let someone ask you the tough questions, answer them the best you can, and then everyone can move on. It’s when all those questions are still lingering because you haven’t allowed anyone to ask them. That presents a problem.”
For more Rachel Nichols news: https://www.thesportsbank.net/entertainment/how-rachel-nichols-made-a-career-of-making-choices/
