I mostly agreed with this point of view until I saw Rafael Nadal’s (post match ha) interview on the subject. Ultimately these press conferences are another avenue to put a spotlight on the sport and it’s the popularity of these top players that bring in fans that write checks for the top ~500 players in the world (plus all the staff around players and tournaments). If a player doesn’t want to participate it only hurts the sport which will eventually hurt you if you want the sport to grow/survive.

Honestly, if they didn’t change the rules because of her, it would eventually happen due to other players following in her footsteps. I’m sure nobody really wants to talk to the press, even after a win (especially when there is another match the next day). I’ve seen so many good moments in those interviews and even the salty people that lost usually have great gems that add something to the sport and make you interested in the next tournament.

Storylines are what make sports interesting in the first place. If there are no stories, a sport is doomed to die IMO.

That may be the case for you but certainly not everyone. I, for one, don't care about interviews at all and in all the sports that I have watched (which includes basically everything, including competitive gaming), I sticked to the race/match/etc only. I watch for the competitive spirit and competitors can express themselves through their actions which is how I may become a fan of them. All the "blabla" is unnecessary fluff and if it's even forced on the competitors, of course they should have the right to refuse, without straight up being denied participation.

You can have storylines and build narratives without annoying star players with paparazzi. And you can have press conferences after big events without the current fashion in which the media harasses athletes.

Just to be clear, post match interviews aren’t “paparazzi”, they aren’t randomly followed on the street, they meet at a given place at a given time and interact with cleared media people.

Do they get asked bad questions sometimes? Yes and it’s amazing to see that reporter asking something inappropriate get slammed by the players.

Why is it amazing for the players in the midst of a very emotional moment to have to endure an inappropriate question, and respond with an attack?

People have such a fetish for “Person A DESTROYS Person B” drama that they’re disregarding the humanity and dignity of the people along the way.

> Why is it amazing for the players in the midst of a very emotional moment to have to endure an inappropriate question, and respond with an attack?

It is amazing that people make a lot of money from playing a game, and for making millions in sponsorships from being famous for that game:

> Both sponsorship agreements follow a wave of success for Osaka. The three-time Grand Slam winner defeated 23-time champion Serena Williams in 2018 and became the highest paid female athlete in 2020, earning around $34 million from endorsements alone.

* https://insidersport.com/2021/01/20/naomi-osaka-signs-luxury...

* https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2020/05/22/naom...

* https://sportskhabri.com/naomi-osaka-brand-ambassador-endors...

If she doesn't want to go out there in public, perhaps she should stopping putting herself out there in public.

If you don't want to be rich and famous, but just rich, go run a hedge fund. Many fewer people will know about you and you'll have just as nice a lifestyle.

It's incredible how entitled we think we are to another person's time, attention, and peace of mind just because they had the audacity to be the best at what they do.

If someone does not want to be in the public, they have every right to not be in the public eye.

But when you are paid to be in the public eye, especially with multi-million dollar endorsement/advertisement contracts, then complaining about being in the public eye... seems non-sensensical IMHO.

Someone might want to play tennis at the highest level and at the same time only be in the "public eye" to a medium extent (spectators and broadcast of the actual match) rather than to the extreme. That shouldn't be an unreasonable ask.

> Someone might want to play tennis

Then play tennis.

But when you sign endorsement deals that has your face on billboards that are several stories tall, complaining about being the public eye is disingenuous:

* https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv4DGMdJgcm/

* https://tennistonic.com/tennis-news/60258/naomi-osaka-takes-...

Perhaps she reasonably assumed that if someone pays to put your face on a billboard while wearing your product, then they are paying to put your face on a billboard while wearing your product. Transaction complete.

The expectation that they should accept further exploitation (paparazzi, forced interviews, etc) is a societal disease; these people are human as well.

The only reason why she is paid to have her face on a billboard is because of her activities in the tennis world. If she is unknown to the general public for being a tennis star, then there is no value to the companies paying her for the use of her image.

If she wants the endorsements she has to put up with the fame. The two go hand in hand. She is trading the hassle of extra attention for a big cheque. Besides perhaps Tiger Woods, I doubt a random person of the general public could name a golf player. Which is why Tiger Woods has/had the endorsement contracts.

If have no problem with her just wanting to play tennis, or not wanting to be in the public spotlight. But to agree to be on public billboards, and not-agree to do public interviews, is an inconsistent position IMHO.

Stop taking the multi-million dollar cheques if you don't want the attention. You'll fall into obscurity quite quickly: how many people pay attention to Andre Agassi or Steffi Graf nowadays?

The reason she is paid is because she is one of the best in the world at doing one specific thing. That’s what people enjoy watching her do.

The promotion of her as an athlete could focus on videos, photos and live spectatorship of the thing she actually does well. She can remain super famous in the context of her sport and people can otherwise leave her alone. Taking a sponsorship should not mean allowing someone control over your life outside of work.

The blind acceptance of the idea of “this is the way this industry has always been run, you better accept it or get out of the way” is how people like Weinstein ever had any power. Good on her to stand up for her well-being and point out the obvious flaws and exploitation in these systems that no one wants to address. That’s how change happens.

> The promotion of her as an athlete could focus on videos, photos and live spectatorship of the thing she actually does well. She can remain super famous in the context of her sport and people can otherwise leave her alone.

And the OP's article is about her (not) doing interviews in relation to the exact context of where her fame is.

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding: I do not think she should be hassled walking down the street, except maybe a fan wanting a selfie with her (which she has the right to decline). But we're talking about participating in things in the context of her career in the tennis world.

If tennis fans wanted to watch some randos play, they could go to their local park and watch two unskilled yahoos (try to) bounce the ball back and forth. But people pay to watched skilled professionals perform at an elite level. These players get their living from being a public spectacle on the court.

If anyone wants to simply pay tennis in peace they can join a private club and smash the ball out of the public eye. But you won't be paid to do it. Every career has its pros and cons.

There is certainly no changing your viewpoint on anything.

For the sake of basic human empathy, I hope that the industry starts to see things Osaka's way instead of yours.

It's absolutely insane that it's the 21st century and we're still having heated debates on whether or not people deserve the most basic level of privacy and autonomy.

>But when you are paid to be in the public eye,

I beg to differ. She is competing in a tennis competition. To do this she should be required to play tennis, and nothing else, not "be in the public eye".

Pro athletes have done basic media days, outreach, and non-antagonizing interviews. Why do they need to do more than that? Why does the default need to be for the public to obsess over them?

On one hand I agree with you; on the other hand, they are getting paid to perform, and that includes the interview by contract. The problem with performances such as those interviews, or theatre plays, is that they need to be done in a timely manner. I think it is reasonable that their career worsens if the reliability is not there - even if there are perfectly legitimate causes for it such are not being emotionally able. Same way there are career issues if you break a leg during a tournament.

Regarding dignity, these people do have alternative paths to earn money, so if they choose a job that they find undign, they can just resign.

Because that is what the markets have determined. There weren’t always post match pressers and clearly the sport has determined that there is a value to having them.

Also, inappropriate questions are very rare but I was just using that as a personal example of what I enjoy but there are also good bits in those pressers on mentality and good examples of composure with a loss that people can learn from. There’s a lot people can get out from a champions mindset which you otherwise wouldn’t get unless they choose to release a book later in life.

> Because that is what the markets have determined.

So what? Markets aren't a god or a person. Championship tennis is about as far away from a free market as you can imagine.

But how do you prevent people turning against sportpeople when they show disdain at taking a bit of heat for a defeat ?

I'd be super worried my sport league would start looking like a bunch of snotty elitist who refuse to lower themselves at people's questions. It's really really hard to feel pity for a multi-million advertisement model who happen to play tennis :s I almost feel like if she can't do that, maybe we shouldn't watch her and she'd be left alone.

I guess they depends on whether you, as a fan of the sport, prefer athletic excellence in the game being played vs being make-believe friends with athletes.

The acceptance of fame being pushed as something to worship just seems so gross

I don’t disagree that it’s possible but if a player refuses to give an opinion or to interact with media it doesn’t make building narratives easier. “Player X has this record vs Player Y” isn’t that compelling in itself.

It is funny that refusing to talk to media is itself generating buzz about the sport so maybe Naomi knows how to spin a narrative better than I know haha.

Athletes refuse to talk to the media now because of the antagonizing acts by the media.

So you don't think that the Grand Slam should be a tennis event, but a tennis and press conference event.

Personally, it strikes me as very weird and even unfair you can be disqualified for something that has nothing to do with playing tennis.

I don't watch sports nearly as much as many other people in my life, though I am interested enough to watch with them when I'm spending time with them.

Serious question for sports fans: do you find the athlete interviews before and after the game all that compelling? Many athletes don't seem interested in doing them and often times they offer a nothingburger response that allows them to get through the interview without having to say too much or expend much emotional energy.

I support Naomi and her decision to call B.S. on this.

One of the reasons why I stopped watching sports was the annoying reporters, broadcasters, and announcers, as well as ridiculous chyrons, graphical effects and general ADD style eye candy constantly thrown at you and also interrupting the flow of the game.

The worst is in the olympics, where they have maybe 100 hours of coverage of which maybe 10 is showing the sport and the rest are various life stories, replete with mood music and weeping parents holding up handwritten signs with clenched fists as Tammy begins her first uneven bar routine.

I might get into sports again if they just showed live sports with zero commentary but good camera work. And I still ocassionally go to a live sports game to, you know, watch the sport without anyone buzzing in my ear.

I have a friend who has explicitly traveled to Canada to watch the Olympics with her sister because the coverage is so much better than in the US - which is to say it’s mostly just the actual competition.

They may also want to consider using a VPN. It makes for a much better Olympic viewing experience, and it can be done with a variety of devices.

Right? Jesus christ! It's like upending your entire life to watch Thai TV in Thailand-- someone will happily beam that data to you anywhere in the world for a fee.

Please call this kind of thing "ADD style". ADD is a condition where people find focusing on things extremely hard and are easily distracted. The kind of programming you refer to makes thing much, much harder to watch for people with ADD.

Anecdote, diagnosed pretty bad adult ADHD. Call it whatever you want, ignore people trying to police your language. Not everyone is offended all the time.

No, I find those interviews shitty and insulting to players. There is no value add.

It is a bit different in combat sports. People like Conor have made this an art form - constantly insulting others, shit talking, talking about money etc. None of this makes any sense, or is useful to elevate sports. It is just disgusting. Just like other shit things in life, there seems to be a market for this.

This is a very idealistic point of view. At the end of the day sports for viewers is entertainment. Athletes make their money by entertaining the audience. They can do this with their skill only and many do. That however is not a path of making the most out of their career financially.

Fighters are literally going against the clock of getting permanent severe brain damage before they retire need to make as much money as fast as possible. What Connor did is the best move a fighter could do. Be as entertaining as possible, outside the ring and inside. Retire with hundreds of millions.

I agree with everything you said. But we have different opinions about what entertainment is. To me, constantly insulting your opponents is not entertainment.

There is a huge market for this kind of “manufactured drama” junk. As evidenced by Conor like behavior. I guess fans are to blame as they eat it up and encourage it.

To me, the actual sport is the entertainment - whether it is MMA or Scrabble or something in between.

Ironically, Osaka is providing the same drama. Rather than shit-talking opponents, she goes up against institutions.

She has also declared a nuanced rejection of IOC's decision to plough-on with Tokyo Olympics, despite +70% of Japanese people being against it.

She's a remarkable person who, if her athletic success continues, will be good for her sport since it will bring in people who care little for tennis but love the attitude.

Sure but the drama is over if/when she or the league relents. She's not making drama for entertainment. She's trying to improve her life and the lives of other athletes who are sick of this particular ritual.

He was one of the highest paid athletes in the world last year and almost none of it (percentage wise anyway) came from fighting.

His last win against an actual decent opponent was in 2016! He's a celebrity and showman now and hasn't taken fighting seriously for years.

He fought Poirier in January and fighting him again on July 10th. Poirier is absolutely top level competition and Conor had him wobbled early.

Also he fought a guy called Nurmagomedov in Oct 2018 who is a sorta ok fighter, good enough to have never lost in 29 fights.

There must be a lot of fighters out there that you don't like if you expect wins over guys of that calibre.

If you go back and check he lost both those fights. He also looked kind of terrible against Poirier, and nothing like the Conor who gave a fuck and took the belt from Eddie Alvarez.

Is he a top 10 fighter in his weight class. Absolutely. Is his paycheck in any way in proportion to a skill as an athlete. Not even close.

McGregor won the first round on all three scorecards.

He didn't look terrible. He looked very dangerous, just didn't address the leg kicks. It's a game of inches, a couple of Conor's big lefts only just missed Dustin's jaw. One of those lands and things could have been very different.

>Is his paycheck in any way in proportion to a skill as an athlete. Not even close.

I was addressing:

>hasn't taken fighting seriously for years.

I disagree. You don't step into the ring with Poirier and have a showing like that without taking fighting seriously.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. To me post-Mayweather Conor is a shadow of the fighter pre-Mayweather Conor seemed to be.

No. Interviews are almost always useless. Best case you get an interviewer asking benign questions and an interviewee provide fluff responses (“it was a team effort”, “we’re ignoring the trophy - we only ever concentrate on the next game”, that kind of thing). Worst case you get malevolent questions aimed at riling then interviewee and resulting in a sound bite. These might be more interesting but are not beneficial to the sport or audience IMHO. In some sports mid game interviews with coaches (during play) and players (at breaks) are becoming a thing. It’s a complete and utter waste and gets my dander up. I watch a ton of sport and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an insightful response to an interview question. Nobody is going to give away their tactics, preparation processes or any other insight that might act as a competitive advantage.

They're awful. 95% of the time it's stock questions and stock answers. The only time they're entertaining is when it's someone like the Patriots' head coach Bill Belichick. He very clearly hates stupid questions but rarely he'll be asked a good one and have a chance to launch into a detailed discussion on punting in the NFL or some other lesser discussed aspect of the game. Ask him good questions and he'll happily give thoughtful, detailed responses, it just almost never happens.

> do you find the athlete interviews before and after the game all that compelling?

I completely ignore them. I used to find them relatively interesting about 30 years ago, when I first started following sports, but as the time has passed I've begun to realise that the only thing that matters is what happens on the playing field. That's also why I'm really not interested in the private life of athletes.

My favourite interview quote, about winning: "the secret is to get more points than the other team".

Since hearing that pearl of wisdom in like 1997 I've no more need for these. What could one possibly add?

The famous comic along those lines: http://vectorbelly.com/electrical177.html

Fun fact: in tennis, you can actually win a match with less points overall.

Ok sets then.

I'm very deeply invested in football (soccer for my freedom-loving friends). I don't particularly care for athlete interviews, but manager interviews can often be pretty interesting. For example, Marcelo Bielsa can do very interesting tactical deep-dives in pre and post-match interviews. That said, the majority of these interviews are pretty bad. Vacuous reporters chasing headlines or expecting a particular answer and working backwards from that to frame questions. There has been some pushback from players and managers.

An example of this is the UEFA Champions League Final this weekend. The player who scored the winning goal was the club's record signing but he hasn't had a very prolific season in terms of goals and assists (long story, he caught COVID and had a tough recovery, the managers and tactics changed multiple times this season, etc.). Moments after the final whistle, the entire team is celebrating and a journo decides this is a good time to ask "there were questions about your performance and your price tag, do you feel like you have paid it off in full with tonight's goal?" The guy just said "Right now I don't give a fuck, we won the fucking Champions' League."

Sports broadcasting has been going down the gutter over the last couple of decades. The game itself has become an afterthought. Commentators have been replaced by dull celebrities. Analysts only want to create outrage. ESPN and every other network is solely interested in drama between players and pushing a certain narrative.

Mostly useless, same questions and same answers every time. The media is trying to spin some narrative and the players/ coaches just throw out the same old lines.

F1 for example is loaded with media that the drivers are required to participate in. The only real memorable stuff is when something funny happens at the interview or the media drag out some team/ driver conflicts.

I've watched a fair amount of live cricket and swimming, and it's _very_ rare for me to find the interviews interesting. I might leave them on as background noise or if I'm waiting to see something after them, but I'm not going to seek them out. They feel like a way to fill air time more than anything.

While it is exceedingly rare (2-5% I would guess, at least in the motorsports I watch), the times when it goes beyond a simple canned response it can be incredibly interesting and compelling. Though I think the dynamic of Motorsports is different than most other sports as you're not going to get the same situations where a driver is being interviewed as they return to the garage from crashing out of the race.

I think ultimately though it's pretty simple math. If you don't have them, you'll never get something good out of them so the small number of them that break the mold justify the whole operation. When you do get something meaningful out of them it usually serves to create drama or fuel whatever narrative is going on in the season.

My wife and I watch Sumo wrestling, and I often understand what the wrestler is replying because it's almost always incredibly simple, like, "I was really happy." The questions are almost inevitably like, "How do you feel about winning the whole tournament?"

They add nothing to the sport, except that I get to laugh that they say the same things as every other competitor.

Reading the comments here, I understand why. If they say anything else, they risk saying something that offends accidentally and it could hurt their career.

So I've got a lot of sympathy for the players here, and not much at all for the industry.

I've long said to anyone who'll listen that there should be an alternate audio channel a la "En espanol en SAP", but instead of another pair of announcers calling the game in another language, it's no announcers at all, and it's just the sounds of the game and the crowd. No commentary. Sports-spectacle is atrocious and ruins most games.

> Serious question for sports fans: do you find the athlete interviews before and after the game all that compelling? Many athletes don't seem interested in doing them and often times they offer a nothingburger response that allows them to get through the interview without having to say too much or expend much emotional energy.

Reference: Bull Durham

The pitch side TV 1:1s are good. The press conferences are universally abysmal. I would not be surprised if an enormous part of it is just to get an athlete head-and-shoulders shot with the Gazprom logo in the background.

95 times out of 100 the interview is simply robotic repetition of the same cliches. You watch the interview for the other 5 times when you sometimes do gain greater exposure or understanding through an emotional or unguarded moment.

This is not BS. This is part and parcel of the job she has signed on for. Apparently she finds it very unpleasant, but that doesn’t make it any less an obligation of her job.

They're mostly useless, but sometimes something interesting happens.

This is generally true of sports commentary too.

Or maybe she should have responded when they reached out to see what they could do to accommodate her. Throwing a tantrum should absolutely be punished.

No, they've just fined her for now and said that if she keeps missing interviews it will (sensibly) count as repeat violations. It is the (supposed) repeated violations which carry the possibility of a forced default.

A one day time lag would mean the media couldn't get a quote for the match until the day after, an impossible long time to wait before reporting the outcome of the match. So most media would just cut the time they spend on tennis, and spend the liberated cash when reporting on other sports instead.

I suppose some really niche tennis journos would go the other way and start agressively pestering the big players for a quote to put along with their match report as all such same-day quotes are now elevated to the status of "scoop".

> It is the (supposed) repeated violations which carry the possibility of a forced default.

"Possibility of a forced default" isn't really indicated by the rulebook for repeated violations of the MEDIA CONFERENCE rule. That's specified on the Point Penalty Schedule, which MEDIA CONFERENCE offences don't use.

It could be AGGRAVATED BEHAVIOUR under the third defining clause ("A series of two (2) or more violations of this Code within a twelve (12) month period which singularly do not constitute 'Aggravated Behaviour', but when viewed together establish a pattern of conduct that is collectively egregious and is detrimental or injurious to the Grand Slam Tournaments.")

But the penalties for Aggravated Behaviour are much more severe than that: "Violation of this Section [...] shall subject a player to a fine of up to $250,000 or the amount of prize money won at the tournament, whichever is greater, and a maximum penalty of permanent suspension from play in all Grand Slam Tournaments."

It would be interesting if she chose to appear in just one tournament a year specifically to invalidate the potential charge of Aggravated Behaviour.

Yes, my reading is that the Aggravated Behaviour clause clearly grants them the power to be harsher, and they simply chose to place a more moderate upper bound for now.

> Did they change the rules just to punish her?

I’m sure we would/will hear an outcry if that happened.

It’s pretty normal that penalties escalate after repeat infractions.

This seems to have been an unpopular comment, which is a little perplexing. I’m not endorsing or criticizing anyone/anything. Just pointing out that penalties usually escalate (in sport and elsewhere in society) after repeat breaches, to prevent people just treating fines as a cost of doing business.

Indeed, if Osaka wants this convention/rule to change, then the best thing to happen is for the penalties to escalate to something as extreme as her being forced out of the tournament (which is bad for everyone involved) to draw attention to the issue and create a movement for change.