And so it starts...free food cut from Mizzou pressbox

Wonder if this will impact Nebraska and the made-to-order breakfast station they had one "early" morning I covered a game there*.


*Admittedly, this was 7 or 8 years ago -- they may have already changed it.

 

BTW, Rocky Mountain News had a policy that it would not reimburse writers for meals at home games. Feeling was desk folks were working and did not get free meals so it could not be justified for the writers. Or course we didn't get turkey and pizza on election night. LOL.

 

Not surprising. As a worker for podunk press, I'll take the freebies or work food on the road into mileage.

 

As already noted, I always thought the food was for everyone working in the press box, so that includes the SID staff and everyone else connected to the school.
Secondly, at the places I freelance, food is either brought up from the concession stand, catered by the school's culinary program as a class project* or a tradeout by the school to a local eating joint for ad space in the game program and or signage at the facility**.
If Southest Central Podunk State call pull that off, I wonder why a similar arrangement couldn't be made at the schools' dropping press box food?

* Best pressbox spread ever.
** I helped with a high school kickoff classic last week where they did exactly that.

 

No question about it. Sometimes, I went weeks without buying groceries in college.

 

I just have never understood what the big deal was either way.

If you have to pay for your meal, fine. If you don't, so what? In 90 percent of cases we're talking about a couple hot dogs or a few slices of pizza.

There are a few places that put out amazing spreads, but I don't think they do so expecting special treatment as a result. I don't think writers have ever made coverage positive or negative based on being fed in the press box. It wouldn't have bothered me for a second if I had to pay as long as they took credit cards.

 

That sounds like a Thanksgiving game with Colorado. I haven't been back in three or four years, but I don't believe they still do that.

Just that much more money available for Valentino's, though.

 

When I was covering baseball in 1997, there were two or three I remembered that charged. I think Pittsburgh was one.

As far as the colleges were concerned, I really agree that the people who were taking the most advantage of the press box food was the interns and college students.

 

Most schools usually have a corporate sponsor supply the meal, so it's not like it's an expense to them either.

 

At one of the colleges I cover, they used to have food for us at every basketball game. The guy who fixed meals for all of the teams prepared the food for us — usually hot dogs or hamburgers along with soup (his chicken noodle soup was the best in the world).

A few years ago, they stopped serving food. Official line was too many people (athletic department staff and their families) were coming in to eat, and the cost was going up. Unofficially, it wasn't a coincidence that the decision to stop serving food to the media came just a couple of months after one of the basketball players had been charged with sexual assault and the coach was unhappy with all of the media coverage and criticism.

Now, there's a new coach. We get a $10 concession stand voucher (which doesn't go a long way) and last season the coach had lunch catered for us one day after his weekly press conference.

At another school I cover, I'd rather pay for a grilled pork chop or steak sandwich from the concession stand than eat the free pizza offered to us. I appreciate the effort on the pizza, but the concession stand food is much better.

I really don't care if we're fed for free. As long as the internet works and I can send my story, I'm fine with that.

 

But I guarantee you that some if not most schools who adopt such a policy will forbid you from bringing something from Subway with you. Just watch.

 

I remember the good old days when I was covering a college that got very little media attention. The SID called the three writers who covered them regularly and asked us what kind of sandwich we wanted from Subway (a corporate sponsor) and what we wanted to drink. He told us if our orders ever changed, just to let him know.