James Venes

There are a few things I’ve shot lately, including my first visit to Alcatraz last week along with finally starting to go back and import some older stuff to the current site, such as New Orleans back in March, but the main focus this time is the Media Day event the Golden State Warriors held last Friday.

To be clear, I’m still just an amateur when it comes to certain things. When I do work for Scout.com I have media credentials but it’s an unpaid thing at this point. At A’s games, I’m just a regular ticket-buying fan and they’re pretty lenient on letting people in with an SLR as long as people don’t try to sell the images and they don’t block others. It’s a little different with the Warriors. I can’t bring a professional camera into the arena, so I’m restricted to using my old “prosumer” camera, one that’s SLR-like in shape.

Point is, to gain access to certain things it helps to have connections. I’ve been on Warriorsworld for a number of years now and they, along with Golden State of Mind, are two of the largest fansites for the team. GSOM has a pretty good relationship with the team and usually has one or two games a year where a large group of fans attend. Warriorsworld is more of a free-flowing site with much less moderation, which basically means anything goes. That definitely gets interesting.

The Warriors have done a pretty good job of understanding the role blogs and fansites play overall. The people who use those sites are among the most diehard fans you’ll find if for no other reason than the fact they’ve sought out a site to communicate with other fans. As part of this, the Warriors have extended invitations to both Warriorsworld and GSOM to cover their annual Media Day. Last year I went for the first time (and ended up transcribing about 20 pages worth of interviews in one evening, ouch) and I was asked to go again this year. There are certain limits on what we can do, which basically amounts to “Working media has first priority when asking questions, but feel free to ask your own at any empty tables.”

This isn’t too hard to comply with, especially when the first group that came out on Friday consisted of veteran Stephen Jackson, second-year player Marco Belinelli and three rookies/training camp invitees. Immediately, all the media gathered around Jackson’s table and I got the other four players one after the other. Not long after that, Belinelli had a few people at his table while I set my recorder down at Jackson’s and still got over 12 minutes worth of questions and answers as I snapped a few photos. Pretty simple stuff.

I may not yet be at the level of someone paid to do this but it’s still fun to have the chance to go to something like this. Whatever anyone thinks of the way the Warriors are run – and the opinions range from one extreme to the other among the fans – it’s great that they give people who wouldn’t normally have any access the chance to observe and take part in a few things.

For a recap of Media Day along with a link to the photos, go here.

For about 70 minutes of audio from the various interviews, go here.

Usually, as training camp goes on, material the reporters obtain on Media Day is cycled through little by little. In my case, I can get it all out there at once and provide a different type of coverage that isn’t limited to so many words per article or column.