As a professional athlete, you're expected to be available for the media, especially post-competition. In fact, it's not just expected; it's required — with the threat of financial punishment used as leverage for those who don't comply. For decades now, being available to the media has been considered an integral part of the job.
So if you, too, want to be a sports superstar, you'd better get used to answering questions, whether you like it or not, no matter how you're feeling.
And don't even bother hoping that the questions are good.
"How did it feel to have those punts returned for touchdowns?" "Do you think you cost your team the game?" "Can you tell us what happened on that shanked kick?" These are all questions I've heard repeatedly before, with various degrees of intensity and at various volumes, generally after 3½ hours performing exhaustive physical activity, when the last thing I wanted to do was talk to anybody.
My opinion as a retired professional athlete? I think Naomi Osaka is absolutely right.
That's why I thought Naomi Osaka's recent social media statement — in which she outlined how the toll of constantly interacting with the sports media was negatively affecting her mental health — was remarkably powerful. She laid out, clearly and concisely, the issues affecting her and said she'd be willing to take the fines not to have to deal with the stress anymore ... which has led to conversation about whether an athlete should even be able to do such a thing.
My opinion as a retired professional athlete? I think Naomi Osaka is absolutely right.
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When you spend years of your life pushing yourself to get to the pinnacle of your sport, you tend to be somewhat competitive — so not performing up to your own standards hurts. And only those who, after poor performances, are able to put them behind them and regain their focus end up succeeding, which makes having to relive those negative moments in response to media questions all the more draining.
I'm never surprised when an athlete doesn't want to talk to the media after a tough outing. It sucks, and it makes you feel worse.
That drained feeling gets even worse when the questions never change, because how many different ways are there, really, to ask, "So, how and why did you screw up today?"
Screaming "Obviously not because I wanted to!" at the top of your lungs while throwing a chair at the questioner is frowned upon in polite society, but I guarantee you that we're all thinking it. When you leave everything out on the field/court/rink and you lose anyway, it can take a while to mentally get over that disappointment. Having to politely answer the same old blindingly obvious and yet unanswerable questions afterward is just the garbage cherry in a sewer water smoothie.
So I'm never surprised when an athlete doesn't want to talk to the media after a tough outing. It sucks, and it makes you feel worse.
However, I think there is merit to having athletes engage with the media — and thereby fans — after games and matches, too. One of the reasons modern sports are so popular is that people care about what athletes have to say, and having access to those athletes is an integral part of the sports media environment. The reason people spend hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on their favorite sports is that they feel a connection to both the teams and the players, and naturally they want to know what those players think and feel.
For too long we've ignored the mental health of professional athletes, demanding that they be warriors able to withstand any sort of pressure no matter what it takes to do their job.
Without the media's being able to interview athletes, that connection dwindles, and salaries go down as fans spend less money. From a financial perspective, giving the media more access to athletes means more money for athletes, so it's understandable why it's considered part of the job.
The problem, of course, is that just because something makes people more money doesn't necessarily mean it's the best course of action. For too long we've ignored the mental health of professional athletes, demanding that they be warriors able to withstand any sort of pressure no matter what it takes to do their job. It's time that we, as a society, have an honest conversation about the damage that can cause — which Naomi Osaka's statement beautifully illustrates. Mental health is important no matter who you are, and athletes are first and foremost human beings.
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Now, I know there will be a contingent of people out there who say to me (as have tweeted at Naomi Osaka) some version of "Oh, boohoo, it's part of your job, you get paid millions, suck it up, I wish I had your job." But those people can safely be ignored, because no one's job, no matter how much they get paid, should put them at risk for a significant mental breakdown.
Instead, we need to revisit how we view putting pressure on people who are emotionally and mentally vulnerable in a given moment.
We as a society need to learn to better respect people's mental health in all lines of work.
Instead of making media appearances mandatory (especially those after tough losses) and fining athletes who opt out — which creates an inherently negative perception of anyone trying to protect their mental health — we could simply give athletes incentives to opt in.
The professional sports leagues and organizations already have dollar values assigned to media appearances; they just assess them as punishments to those who don't feel comfortable talking to the media. Instead of doing that, count up the number of postgame media appearances currently required and multiply that by the fines that would be assessed if everyone opted out to figure out what a league or a tournament considers the value of those appearances. Then tournaments or leagues could take that amount of money as a base reduction in salary across the board and set it aside in a separate pool, and whoever opts in to postgame interviews gets to divide up what's there.
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I promise you that there are more than enough athletes who would want to talk to the media, even after a loss, if it were not mandatory, and who would be happy to answer the same question rephrased 10 ways if it meant they picked up an extra couple of bucks here and there. Meanwhile, no amount of cajoling is going to get a big-name superstar to talk who doesn't want to, even if you force him, her or them to be there (see: Marshawn Lynch).
Some people just don't like being on camera or sharing their experiences when they're vulnerable, and that's fine. We as a society need to learn to better respect people's mental health in all lines of work, and hopefully within sports we can find a better approach than "access all the time no matter what, and if this person doesn't do that they're a failure/loser/unable to handle the pressure." It's OK for Naomi Osaka not to want to put herself in a position she feels is endangering her mental health, and it's OK for anyone else to feel the same.