ESPN is putting the media into media timeouts this season in Southeastern Conference men’s basketball.
League coaches for years have been interviewed before games, at halftime or after games, but now they are having to discuss what they are witnessing during first-half timeouts. Florida’s Billy Donovan gave two such interviews last week when the Gators hosted Vanderbilt and Kentucky on ESPN.
Last Tuesday was the first such experience for Commodores coach Kevin Stallings.
“There are some coaches who love to see themselves on camera, but I don’t think in general that it’s something coaches would prefer to do,” Stallings said. “We agreed to do it, so that’s what we’ve got. It’s a little bit of a runoff from the NBA and some things they are doing, and it was just a concept that might make our game a little more enjoyable to people who were watching it on television.”
Conference coaches were introduced to the idea of ESPN’s new interviewing format last spring at the league meetings in Destin, Fla. The SEC and ESPN are in the second school year of a 15-year contract in which the cable network is paying the league more than $2 billion for the rights to athletic telecasts.