High-performance teams have a responsibility to promote and protect. But it’s now very hard for them to do both of those things consistently well. 

As a result, many teams employ remote media interview practices that see, for example, the personal mobile phone numbers of their athletes circulated throughout the media. Such a system appears to be a simple and swift way to provide media access (like for a radio interview). 

BUT… circulating athletes’ personal contact details provides permanent and shareable access to them. So it rolls the dice with their privacy, well-being and even performance. 

Such a system also lacks transparency and accountability - and it is fundamentally uncontrollable. (Which is a major ‘duty of care’ red flag). 

High-performance teams need to both promote and protect.

The protection piece falls under their duty of care responsibilities. And that duty of care extends across things that ‘can be controlled’.

Circulating the personal contact details of the people in your duty of care creates access to them that is permanent, shareable and fundamentally uncontrollable.

They’re now on-call to whoever you’ve given their details to (and whoever they in turn have given those details to. And so on and so on).

For people who operate in the media spotlight, uncontrollable access can have a major impact on their privacy, well-being and even performance. The damage to both individuals and brands can be significant.

We think a far better solution is to provide temporary and contactless access, which is fundamentally controllable.

The law increasingly thinks so, too, with data privacy legislation such as GDPR changing what’s acceptable in Europe and fines for breaches ramping up in countries such as Australia (to A$50m following the Optus breach in late 2022).

High-performance sport in New Zealand. 

Caley Wilson, who founded Blinder, used to be the media manager of New Zealand Rugby League and worked alongside athletes like Sonny Bill Williams, Benji Marshall and Shaun Johnson, as well as female stars like Maria Tutaia.  

Caley recognised that sporting organisations were struggling to provide great media access to athletes, while also taking care of their privacy, well-being and performance.

Blinder is used by athletes and coaches from multiple World and Olympic champion national teams, NCAA Div 1 colleges, and clubs from the AFL to the NFL.

Blinder gives communications teams a secure online dashboard through which they can schedule, manage and record any remote media interview. The process is dead simple.

Call details get sent to the media and athletes by text and email. Then, at the agreed time, the media can directly call through to the personal mobile phone of the Talent.

Reminders are sent by text to all parties 10 mins before the call.

No app is needed. No personal contact details are exchanged.

No. No one needs an app or to download anything to use Blinder. Athletes simply agree to an interview time with their communications manager and then answer their mobile phone.

No. Blinder is a system purchased by high-performance teams to help them both promote and protect. There is no additional charge for athletes or the media. 

For starters, drop us a line and we’ll happily discuss your situation.

But another simple step is to empower your athletes to say: “Yeah, Nah."

The sporting organisations your athletes represent (such as their clubs and national teams) need the ‘informed consent’ of athletes to distribute their personal contact information. The athletes have every right to say ‘No’ to giving that consent (even if they have given it before). 

So we recommend they respectfully say to those sporting organisations: 

“Yeah, Nah.”

“Yeah, I’m right up for doing media interviews to support the team. But Nah, you don’t have my 'informed consent' to distribute my personal contact information.”

Then the athletes could encourage their communications departments to contact the team here at Blinder.