ESPN Wisely Only Sending Eight Reporters To Beijing

The "Leader" usually takes pride in sending outrageous numbers of people to events they aren't airing, but I am shocked (shocked I tell you!) that they are only sending eight to Beijing next month. According to USA Today though, those eight are going to have a hell of a time getting info based on some serious restrictions on content from those not named NBC....

Like ESPN, which will deploy just eight staffers in Beijing — including Jeremy Schaap and George Smith as its only on-air types — trying to see what it can rustle up. It won't be easy. Non-rights holders, even if they can get into official venues such as competition sites — where "mixed zones" allow athletes and media members to mingle — cannot bring in any recording devices — including cameras. The exception is the Games' main press, but their footage or audio cannot be aired live. (And each day, ESPN can only air event highlights after NBC's prime-time coverage ends — and then no more than six minutes on a news show.)

For ESPN Olympic producer Arty Berko, it's his eighth Games as an outsider. That's meant trying to line up interviews with Olympians in very unofficial venues — in bars, on the street and even alongside a highway at the 2002 Winter Games. At the 1992 Barcelona Games, Berko spotted track star Carl Lewis about to get on an athletes' bus — just as autograph seekers spotted him too. Lewis, says Berko, started to run: "In that moment, my job description was to run and catch the world's fastest man" — which, he says, he actually did.

With NBC sending over 2900 employees, over 100 announcers and airing over 3600 hours of coverage....this type of guerilla reporting might actually be a welcome change. In the end though, I still don't think that many people care so they might have actually saved some money in large part based on those restrictions.

ESPN forced to work Beijing's backstreets (USA Today)