Media Bowl Gifts

Bloomin Onion appetizers before kickoff and steak at halftime.

 

A little late, but the haughty idea that your coverage is compromised by a bowl gift or outing is way over-the-top.
I covered the Meineke Car Care Bowl last week. All of us scribes got to ride around Charlotte Motor Speedway at 165 MPH in a fire suit.
After the game, we got a small gift bag - a Meineke Bowl tumbler, a Belk Bowl hat (it's being sponsored by Belk, the department store chain, next year) and a small ceramic Belk shopping bag currently being used as my toothbrush holder.
None of that stopped me from writing about the oceans of empty seats in the stadium or describing it as a typical mid-level bowl. Sheesh.
Most of the bowl gifts I've received over the years are in my closet - a nice travel bag from the Gator Bowl, a fleece blanket from the Music City Bowl, a beach towel from the Champs Sports Bowl. They didn't affect my coverage one bit.
As someone else said already, get over yourself.

 

I know I turned into a whore for the Orange Bowl when they gave me a beach towel.

 

Well, if you can't hold your alcohol, a few beers might mess with your professionalism, I suppose.

 

It was the night before the game. Would you rather I lock myself in the hotel room and contemplate the award-winning sidebar I was going to write the next day? Or hit the strip clubs? Or maybe infiltrate the team's hotel and hold a glass to the door of each player to see who's staying up 10 minutes past curfew?
Considering I filed five stories and worked a 13-hour day the next day, I think I earned a little R&R. That I didn't have to expense a meal made the superiors happy, too.

On the larger topic this has morphed into, I think I once heard somewhere that a good rule of thumb is $25. That might be a bit low these days, though. Might need to be raised to $50.
The car at the golf tournament? Yeah, you should probably turn that down or donate it to charity.
The box of golf balls at the same tournament? OK.
A $200 steakhouse dinner paid for by a source or bowl committee? Pick up the check.
A free hamburger from the concession stand after a high school football game? Pick up the mustard.

 

I almost forgot. I have four surviving Super Bowl champagne glasses from post-Super Bowl supper buffets. I cherish those, too.

 

I accepted a gift from a source one time. I did a feature story on this track invention a local coach had created. Afterward he handed me a track backpack. I thought it would be unethical at first but then realized that I A). needed a backpack and B.) Wrote the story because it was newsworthy not for the backpack.

It also wasn't going to influence my future decision to write stories. If the guy had another newsworthy story, I would have called him again - because that was my job and I needed a paycheck. Not because I got a backpack.

 

To change the subject just a little, which bowl games do the best job of catering to the media from a professional standpoint?

By that I mean which game provides the best working environment for game week and game day.

 

1. Fiesta (and BCS championship in years when it's in Phoenix)
2. Cotton.
3. Gator.

 

How so? Seems to me the biggest issue is how much access you get to players/coaches during the week and after the game. Do the bowls control that?