Super Bowl Week has reached Wednesday, but media whining about Jacksonville and its lack of amenities has been in full force since Sunday. Living in Rhode Island and working in Massachusetts allows me to listen to sports radio stations in Boston, Providence and New York, read newspapers from both states and the internet gives me access to several newspaper websites from all over the country. The media has found so much to complain about that the game this Sunday seems secondary.
Throughout past four days, I have read or heard the complaints about the following subjects:
1. The hotel rooms are too small.
2. The hotels are too far away from the media center.
3. There are not enough restaurants in Jacksonville.
4. The hotels don’t have room service after 11 p.m.
5. Jacksonville is too small to host a Super Bowl.
6. Reporters have to, god forbid, walk from their hotels to the media center.
7. It’s too cold to go out at night.
8. There’s no parking for the media.
9. Reporters can’t find their way around the city.
10. The food in the hotels is subpar.
11. Blah. Blah. Blah.
To the reporters who are well compensated to cover the year’s biggest sporting event in the country from those of us who will be at home watching the game, SHUT THE F UP!!!! Those who complain don’t want to be at the Super Bowl anyway. Nobody cares about the hotel accomodations, the lack of transportation or the way you’re being treated by natives. You’re there to cover the game, not tell us about your personal life. Yet, reporters think readers or listeners or viewers want to read, hear or see them. No, we want news from the game and we don’t care about your problems.
Tom Curran of the Providence Journal wrote Monday about the whining:
Media whining about Podunk Jacksonville is under way. “The hotel’s are dingy.” “The rides to the hotels are too long.” “It’s cold.” “My feet hurt.” “Where’s the sun?” “No free computer bags this year?”
Hey, if fate had dealt you a different hand you could have been living on the beach in Sri Lanka a month ago. Shut up about the inconveniences.
The best part is this: the Super Bowl media party is allegedly on the 17th green at TPC Sawgrass. Anyone want to bet that someone will complain how inconvenient it is to walk all the way out to the famous green on the tiny bridge?
And I’m sure someone will complain about the food for the reporters at the Super Bowl. I don’t think the media will ever get it when it comes to their readers, listeners or viewers. It’s not about them, it’s about the event, the game and the fans. Writers like Curran are more of the minority than the mainstream. Yet, the coverage has focused more on what the media can’t do, instead of what the New Engalnd Patriots or the Philadelphia Eagles will do in the game.
