Drew Rosenhaus is an NFL super-agent (a term typically granted to those who amass over a hundred clients) and the founder of Rosenhaus Sports Management, based in Miami, Fl. As an agent, it is Drew’s job to represent his clients through their business, as well as some of their financial and legal standing. The media’s ticket to an athlete like Chad OchoCinco – a very popular and eccentric character in the NFL – is through Drew Rosenhaus. He manages what his players should and should not say to the media, and when his clients take ‘heat’ from the media, so does he.
Selena Roberts is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated and the New York Times. She is also a well-accomplished author. Roberts’ experience in the field of journalism alone will help me to gain a greater perspective on the potential necessity of female sideline reporters. She herself is a female journalist, making her a part of many similar demographics that the women I am studying are in. She has done work with many female ‘sideline’ reporters in her past including, Michele Tafoya, Nancy Smith, and even Erin Andrews – something she mentioned in her book A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez.
Going into this interview, nerves and worry had struck me so hard that I even - at one point - forgot what the subject of the interview was.
Actually, let's say that this was more of a small-group Q & A session; a personalized press conference if you will.
I was nervous both because of the magnitude of this meeting, and with the thought that these people may potentially not answer my questions the way I would like them to (I don't mean this in terms of the answers they may have given me, but in terms of their opwn personal fears of answering questions that they may feel to be 'too controversial'). With that said, I made sure, prior to our 4 pm meeting time at the Goggin Ice Arena, that I didn't make my questions elude to the sexual connotations I have hit upon previously in the blog.
As Rosenhaus kicked our session off by introducing himself in the intense and aggressive manner that he is so notorious for in recruiting clients, I could immediately tell that it was going to take some force on my part to make sure my questions were comprehended in the fullest.
Rosenhaus and Roberts had nevered met before, and they were quite an interesting combination, especially with regards to their opinions and notes on the female sports sideline reporter. Typically, a journalist and an agent would seem to be enemies, considering that the journalists goal is to dig up information (good and bad) on an agents prized clients.
Before I was even able to speak, Selena began to discuss - from her journalistic perspective - how "players today are product of title IX". She mentioned that players used to be extremely uncomfortable when she was trying to interview them simply because she was a woman and they would have a tough time relating with her.
Rosenhaus, added onto this, however he was more focused on stressing the importance of professionalism in sports media and management. Both Rosenhaus and Roberts have seen young and attractive women in their professions use their physical appearance and sex to get both stories and clients among other things within the respective businesses. As a viewer of sports on television I notice that a majority of the women working the sidelines happen to be quite attractive.
When it came time for me to state my actual research question, I had felt confident that I could arise some somewhat valid answers out of my subjects.
Boy was I caught off guard...
Here is the the transcription of this point in my interview:
ME:
“Yes I would like to get both the male and female perspective on this, so could we just step back to the talk about women in you businesses, and well I am conducting research currently on the potential emergence of the female sideline reporter in broadcasts of sports – obviously, Drew I am sure you see this in the NFL -. Do either of you feel there is now a necessity for these figures on TV?”
DREW ROSENHUAS:
“NO way ugh!”
SELENA ROBERTS:
“ Oh Drew is right there is no reason to have these women down there, I assume you’re referring to like Erin Andrew, right – I mean I think she’s real smart - but what is she doing with that job. Yea it’s a great way to incorporate women, but they’re just going to get thrown right into the kitchen.”
“Yes I would like to get both the male and female perspective on this, so could we just step back to the talk about women in you businesses, and well I am conducting research currently on the potential emergence of the female sideline reporter in broadcasts of sports – obviously, Drew I am sure you see this in the NFL -. Do either of you feel there is now a necessity for these figures on TV?”
DREW ROSENHUAS:
“NO way ugh!”
SELENA ROBERTS:
“ Oh Drew is right there is no reason to have these women down there, I assume you’re referring to like Erin Andrew, right – I mean I think she’s real smart - but what is she doing with that job. Yea it’s a great way to incorporate women, but they’re just going to get thrown right into the kitchen.”
Both subjects later went on to say that 'being nice looking' has almost become the quota of the female sideline reporter. The most groundbreaking thing that Roberts said to me was that these women are NOT needed, and "until they make their ways into the booth, they're nothing but somebody who is nice to look at an can read fairly well."
Early on in speaking with Selena Roberts, I heard her mention several times that she knows and respects personalities like Michele Tafoya and Suzy Kolber, and she felt that they were truly gifted media personnel. Both of these women were sideline reporters in the '90's and into today. If both Selena and Drew feel that the female sideline reporter position is unneeded today then it would appear to me that the job title has not developed into a necessity, rather it has deevolved from classy, intelligent women who exemplify professionalism in sports reporting, to typecasted young adult women wearing the highest fashion to magnify their unfurbished bone structures.
I truthfully expected to be bored with this interview. Not because I did not feel lucky to have these amazing people as interviewees, but because I was at a point in my research where I did not know what would come next. I had noticed myself through reading books and watching video clips that I had kept circulating around the same central themes of the topic: that women are being more universally accepted in the media, and that is why they appear in so many different sideline jobs. I also just assumed that due to the stature of these professionals that they would try to avoid saying anything confrontational to a student no less.
Well I was dead wrong. The fact that both subjects even agreed on answers shocked me, but the fact that they ravished the concept of sideline reporters altogether was astonishing. They did not care that more women were making their way into broadcast’s, they criticized both the structure of the position itself, as well as the women who get employed in these roles. This shocked me into my own personal ‘journalistic’ mindset and I finally realized that I had been dancing around the idea that female sideline reporters are emerging rapidly. What I need to realize is that they have already emerged and are in full force, the issue is that they are not necessarily a staple of the programs. From this I must change my question and ask, not “if” female sideline reporters are a necessity, but “how” they have become that way. It is only a minor change, but I feel that I have an all new purpose with my research because I am now able to look at my research in a more ambitious, but slightly negative fashion.
Don't shut off your PC...or Mac,
Blog Master Nilsen
Works Cited:
Roberts, Selena. Rosenhaus, Drew. Personal. Nov. 2, 2009.
