Background:

The Kiwi rugby league team doesn’t play that often. When I was their media manager, sometimes it was just twice a year. So we needed to make the most of our moment in the sporting spotlight.

Building up to a test match, there were plenty of competing elements for the attention of the players, though. Number one was getting set to perform. The window for other things was limited.

But constraints can force solutions. 

Here’s what we did in camp with the Kiwis to share our athletes’ stories through the media, without overly disrupting their schedules.

Scene set:

• First day in camp (say a Monday) leading into a Saturday test match
• Team room over lunch hour, all players and coaches present
• Five staff mobile phones set to be used for media interviews

Why?

• Break the back of content that needed to drop throughout the week (from feature print articles, to radio interviews, to player profiles for match programmes)
• A belief that one-on-one interviews matter for good storytelling (as they let your characters shine)
• This was a hugely special time for the athletes, as it gave them a chance to talk more about their connection to their country, their culture, their family...
• To respect the media, respect the athletes, respect the fans

How?

• By email, we’d let key media know about the opportunity well in advance
• The media would get their interview requests in
• Once agreed, we’d send out a schedule telling the media which phone number to ring and when
• I’d borrow the mobile phones of four members of the management team (plus my phone made five)
• We had a whiteboard with a 4 x 5 grid on it. Four interview time slots (12.30pm, 12.45pm etc) x five phones.
• So, at 12.30pm you’d see: 
• • Phone #1: Shaun Johnson with Radio Sport
  • Phone #2: Benji Marshall with Triple M
  • Phone #3: Issac Luke with Stuff
  • Phone #4: Sonny Bill Williams with The Sydney Morning Herald
  • Phone #5: Simon Mannering with Radio New Zealand
• Each player would be told who they were talking to, for how long (~15mins), and the key discussion points
• They also knew who they had to give their phone to next. (So, Shaun Johnson passes to Kieran Foran - that's them pictured).

What worked?

✅ We made a lot happen in a short amount of time
✅ The media could do decent interviews (not just feed off scraps from a press conference)
✅ It was super simple for the athletes (who only had to answer a phone they’d been handed)
✅ We respected the privacy and wellbeing of the athletes by not circulating their personal contact details
✅ I was physically present to steer things along

What was a bit sh*t?

❌ As an organisation, we only had a vague understanding of what had been said in the interviews (and that came from asking the athletes)
❌ Keeping interviews to time was an untidy, arm-waving process
❌ The interviews weren’t done in the best environment for quality conversations (as the team room was a bit chaotic over lunch)
❌ We were restricted by the number of staff mobile phones we had. We could have done more interviews in less time.
❌ I didn’t have my phone (and that’s not ideal for a media manager when in camp)

But that experience was a real catalyst for me in imagining what a future could look like free of the storytelling constraints of our Kiwis experiment.