Trevor Bayne/Daytona 500: Cheering in the Press Box

Not out loud, perhaps, but I am sure we have all hoped, silently at some point, that a team lose to make life easier on a future day.

This is going to sound sophomoric, but we always put a list of playoff teams up in the office to keep track and it always wound up as a "hit list" with lines drawn through the teams when they lost.

Of course the three kids from the local school in the state wrestling tournament got knocked out of the winners' bracjket today, which opens me up to cover ice-fishing tomorrow.

 

Cover a lot of horse racing, Ace?

 

To be honest, I think the best place to cover a race is in the grandstand if you have a good seat and are able to focus on the race and not all the crazy things people do in the stands. Because in the stands, you can watch the race for yourself if you follow the sport and know all the details like teams, car numbers, etc. And get a true accurate depiction of what is going on at the track without the TV or radio guys or PR people's analysis on everything. The reader is trying to see the race through your eyes. Not something that has been replayed 1,000 times on the closed circuit TV monitor at the track or on Sprint Vision.
Look at it this way. It's really no different than covering preps from the sidelines. So getting a breath of fresh air and stepping outside the infield media center and press boxes every now and then might not be such a bad thing. You can always get the press releases and interviews on paper after the race since accessibility to the drivers has been cut so much these days.

 

I cover a lot of horse racing, and most of the working press bets to some degree. For some, it almost seems like a preoccupation, but many of them are also professional handicappers. To cover it from a news perspective, you have to know how to read the form, which naturally makes it more tempting to bet. Funny thing is, the converse never seems to work with the desired effect, at least not for me. As I've been more and more immersed in the sport, somehow the correlative windfall at the windows rarely occurs.

I can't speak for anybody else, but I know my pressbox betting doesn't effect my reporting. It's really bad form to root loudly for your horse from an act-like-you've-been-there standpoint, but it still happens. Of course, there's way more bitching and cursing than open cheering.

 

Isn't it completely unethical to bet on a sport you cover, since you can theoretically affect the line? Especially with an event you're covering. Seems like Ethics 101 to me.

 

The debate, then, is whether we should be examining the ethics theoretically or in practical terms.

Personally, I'm an absolutist. I want a procedural check on the mere possibility of journalistic malfeasance. That's just me, though. I always like my rules anchored that way, no matter the field.

 

Plus you don't want guys expecting you to buy dinner after you hit the trifecta.

 

OK, you got me. I was cheering in the press box. With all my heart. Tears flowing for young Trevor as I typed my lede ...

 

I'm an absolutist on some issues, but I think this one should be addressed as a practical matter. The mathematics of parimutuel wagering are altered by every dime wagered, no matter how big the pool if you want to get to the 10,000th decimal point or whatever, but you're not actually altering the story in any significant way. And if your bets affect how you report or tell the story, you really need to find a new line of work.

It's impossible to cover it just as a sport without addressing the betting aspect because the reader wants to know who the post-time favorite is, how the horse fared, etc. If you bet on the race that you're reporting, whether it's a drop in the ocean at the Derby or you're sending it in at Suffolk Downs, you're not affecting the outcome of the race itself. As more than one trainer has said, the horse didn't know if he was 50-1 or 8-5.

Because we write a lot of race advances at our shop, one thing I wrestle with sometimes is the notion that people are going to take it as an exercise in handicapping, and not mere storytelling, but in horse racing, those two things are unavoidably intertwined, and I guess that ultimately is why you have to approach it from a practical angle. Granted, I'm not privy to everybody's business, but I really have never seen evidence of someone unprofessional enough to allow their betting to affect how they reported or told the story. The whole idea of that is repugnant. It's possible to wear both hats.

If my editor ever tried to implement a procedural check on my betting to remove even the hint of impropriety, I hope I'd be able to articulate my case a little more cogently than this, but then again, he's got his nose in the entries, too, so I'm safe for now.