When I was first starting out in the business 25 years ago, after my first time shooting game highlights of our local minor league baseball team, the sports anchor gave me a constructive critique of my shooting. Then he asked me if I’d gotten my free hot dogs and soda there, and I said no. He was like "WHAT!" At the time, I didn’t know they fed all the working media for free at the games. He said to me, "one important thing to remember about this business was that there’s no such thing as a free lunch -except in sports."

Later, when I worked in Dallas, both the Texas Rangers and the Dallas Cowboys fed us whenever we were working the games, whether it was sidelines or postgame or whatever. No charge, just sign in and show your media game credentials at the cafeteria.

If I remember correctly, the same was true of most pro sports franchises in Pittsburgh. We’d come to cover practice, do post-practice interviews, and then eat in the same cafeteria as the players at the practice facility -free of charge.
Steelers spring training facility, lunch was on them, free of charge.

Now, here in Phoenix, if I cover Cardinals practice, during the post-practice locker room media availability, they have a buffet right there in the locker room -for the players, who stuff their faces after they get out of the shower, but there’s nothing offered to us in the media. When I cover the Diamondbacks, there’s a cafeteria on the press level, but we all have to pay for the food there. $9.00 for a full buffet, or $5.00 if you want just a salad. I mean the price isn’t horrible, it could be a whole lot worse. And I can understand if other types of business and industry have had to cut corners in today’s economy, but major league sports? As I mentioned at the beginning of my post, my first experience with being fed for free by a sports franchise was with a minor league team.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just here in Phoenix that this happens. After all, I’ve been in this market for 12 years now, so I haven’t gotten to see first hand what the policies are in other markets regarding pro sports teams feeding the media. Is it a sign of the times, or is it just the market that I’m in? Not that I would move to another market just because of that, I’m just curious.