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Leagues and Governing Bodies

NBPA's Roberts Questions Media's Locker-Room Etiquette, Talks Union-League Issues

NBPA Exec Dir Michele Roberts during her first few months on the job "would occasionally deflect questions, saying she wasn't yet knowledgeable enough on the subject," but "those days are gone," according to Kate Fagan of ESPNW.com. Roberts during a recent interview said of NBA players' media availability, "Most of the time I go to the locker room, the players are there and there are like eight or nine reporters just standing there, just staring at them. And I think to myself, 'OK, so this is media availability?' If you don't have a f---ing question, leave, because it's an incredible invasion of privacy." She added, "Are there ways we can tone it down? Of course. It's very dangerous to suggest any limitation on media's access to players, but let's be real about some of this stuff." Fagan wrote Roberts' answers "are rarely fluffy; she says what she means." That is "one reason she's so popular with the players." Roberts "has drawn a clear line in the sand about many of the straightforward issues the league and union must negotiate." She said of raising the NBA's age limit, "No way. Completely against it." Fagan wrote many people around the sport "feel as if the league and union are like two battleships positioning themselves directly at one another," as both the players and owners "can opt out of the current CBA" in '17. But Roberts "wouldn't go that far, choosing instead to focus on the time still remaining to solve issues rather than the number of issues needing to be solved" (ESPNW.com, 2/25). The Pro Basketball Writers Association on Thursday in a statement called Roberts' characterization of locker room access periods "inaccurate" (Mult., 2/26).

MEDIA MIFFED: In N.Y., Frank Isola wrote of Roberts' comments about media access, "There was a time when female reporters ... were subjected to outrageous claims that they were using their access to stare at the players. It was just as insulting then as it is now." Working the locker room "is an essential aspect of the job." For Roberts to "put further restrictions on availability is a fight that isn’t worth fighting." Her comments "are another calculated attempt to show union members that she’s going to fight for them," but she "came across as uninformed and insensitive" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 2/26). CBSSPORTS.com's Ken Berger wrote Roberts "apparently has no idea" who pays the players' salaries. Fans' consumption of NBA tickets, merchandise, broadcasts and information "has contributed to the league negotiating a broadcast and digital rights contract that literally is so massive, the owners and players can't even agree on how to inject all that money into the sport's economic engine" (CBSSPORTS.com, 2/26). SPORTING NEWS' Sean Deveney asks, "Why would Roberts want to appear to pick a fight with reporters to begin with?" Because she "doesn’t particularly care whether the media likes her," or whether "the denizens of the NBA office like her." Roberts is "seeking the utmost loyalty of the players she has been assigned to represent" (SPORTINGNEWS.com, 2/27). ESPN's Michael Wilbon said of Roberts, "She must think she's bad, bad Leroy Brown and wants to wear her ring on everybody's nose. Seriously! What an ego on her" ("PTI," ESPN, 2/25).

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