In-game interviews are becoming more common across sports. We’ve particularly seen lots of them in baseball in the past few years. After initial appearances during spring training and the All-Star Game, it’s also become quite common to see these during the MLB regular season.
For better or worse, in-game interviews have provided more access to players and coaches than ever. Increased in-game interviews on MLB broadcasts have been popular with fans, and MLB and the MLPA have incentivized players to do them. The league and its broadcasters have convinced players to do this due to specific financial incentives.
Those same financial incentives aren’t available to managers, who have been doing in-game interviews well before their players. And it certainly shows in their answers. It’s a lose-lose situation for the manager and the reporter, but it’s still popular nonetheless and makes for entertaining television.
So, ESPN’s Buster Olney is already up against it and was placed in an impossible situation during the most recent edition of Sunday Night Baseball. This is probably the only chance The Worldwide Leader would get to ask the Los Angeles Angels manager a question about a potential Shohei Ohtani trade before the MLB trade deadline. It just so happened that this was during the game.
So, you could imagine the reaction when Olney asked Phil Nevin about Ohtani’s future with the team during the third inning of Sunday night’s game between the Angels and Houston Astros.
"It's all business."
Phil Nevin on Shohei Ohtani's future with the Angels. pic.twitter.com/pt2H8s3Nvh
— ESPN (@espn) July 17, 2023
Nevin didn’t exactly give Olney a lot to work with here. He delivered the company line while also expressing that he “hopes the rumors go away again.” It’s undoubtedly a topical question, albeit an interesting one to ask a manager during the course of a game. Nevin and Olney understand that Ohtani is what people want to hear and see, but that doesn’t mean viewers were pleased by this question being asked in the middle of a game.
I'm glad I wasn't able to watch the "Let's Talk About Why Shohei Ohtani Needs to be Traded" three hour special ESPN aired tonight. https://t.co/g5N7CoYJ6O
— Jeremy Howell (@jeromy_howell) July 17, 2023
Why does espn have to ask this straight up in the middle of a game? Lol. https://t.co/IWlLJvlCQY
— Joshua Wertheim (@joshwertheim) July 17, 2023
If MLB and teams signed off on in game interviews what is the big deal? Why wouldn't Buster Olney ask him the most important question he could ask him. Nothing wrong at all here ! https://t.co/lMkVbLf7Ov
— Wes C (@WesClements22) July 17, 2023
ESPN is a joke…why are you asking Nevin this mid game? https://t.co/xWMRirqfdN
— Dallas ✭ (@lonestarbait) July 17, 2023
genuinely one of the most unprofessional, slanted questions you could possibly ask and i wouldnt have blamed phil if he left mid interview https://t.co/D0ksnqOiMI
— saya (@uyohs_) July 17, 2023
These reactions are understandable.
In-game interviews are popular, but it certainly appears that asking questions unrelated to the game being played is not. We aren’t going to pile on Olney, who was only doing his job here. It wasn’t “gotcha” question, but it wasn’t a question that would be answered honestly and thoroughly.
Maybe this is a more significant referendum on in-game interviews as a whole. Maybe it isn’t. At the end of the day, it’s a topical question, and both Nevin and Olney handled it professionally. Whether it was the right time or place is a discussion for another day, but those who tuned in to watch the game were largely not in favor of the question being asked.
