Travel time, game time

I'd say 1:30 is about right. Make sure everything works, grab a bite to eat, mingle with the out of town media, watch a little warm-up and a few games on the TVs if it's an afternooner. You can never get there too early, especially if its a big game.

 

Usually 60-90 minutes for the reasons stated above. Basketball's a different animal. Usually about 45 minutes early, though I need to get better at judging my time for road games. A couple of times last year I showed up about three minutes before tipoff because I got caught in massive traffic or couldn't find the media parking. I definitely need to allow myself more time for such scenarios.

 

When one was schooled on the traffice at the old Route One and the old Foxboro Stadium, one developed the habit of arriving at least 2.5 hours before a kickoff. I've always been as early as I can be and always will. Color me paranoid.

 

Is the buffet out 2.5 hours before the game? If not, do you hover around the table edgily and ask the catering personnel how much longer every time they pass by you?

 

Michael ... I won't even go into the time when I arrived five minutes into the first quarter of an NFL game because of traffic. Yeah, I was young. That was a lesson learned for sure.

 

I despise every single one of you.

Races, you're there 6-7 hours before the race starts. You put in a full day, timewise, before the damn green flag drops. Even at that point, I've come to a dead stop in the interstate from traffic. SEVEN FREAKING HOURS BEFORE A RACE.

College games? 2 hours. NFL? About 2, 2 1/2. Never done anything else.

 

I have an assigned spot but still arrive two hours early for a football game (I-A). Gives you plenty of wiggle room should something unforeseen happen along the way, gives you time to send a test, do some socializing, eat, check game notes, etc. You're not hurrying.

One hour for a basketball game.

I know of one writer who regularly came in just before kickoff/tipoff, disrupting everything, making people move stuff, etc. Several times he/she even missed the tipoff, often by 2-3 minutes. Very unprofessional.

 

Dear IGAG: New Hampshire International Speedway is 70 miles from my house. For the iniitial Nextel (then Winston) Cup race there in the '90s, I left home at 8 a.m. for a 2 p.m. start. I arrived in the press room fifteen minutes before the national anthem.
Ever after, I left at 6 a.m.

 

Big fan of arriving early, especially for night games. With early notes to be filed and the boatload of other copy I need to do, it seems like I can't get there early enough. Now if it's one of those 11:30 a.m. kickoffs, I'll try to be there just early enough so that traffic doesn't make me late. But for a night game on deadline, early. At the joint I cover, the difference between being OK on traffic and stuck mercilessly on the interstate going 5 mph is sometime around 3 1/2 hours before the game.

 

Put me down for between 2-3. I like to gossip and listen to rumors and talk about nothing with sources in case there might be some something in that nothing.

 

And God help you if you accidentally sit in someone's seat in the press room.

At least now they have wireless Internet there.