Teams guard their injury information closely, only doling out what the league requires them to during the week to maintain the illusion of transparency.
During games, it’s often easy to see what happened to players, if not how it will affect the rest of the game.
But one team wants to pass out those updates to their paying customers before their opponents or the league.
Via Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post, an email to season-ticket holders which detailed some other changes to their game-day experience, Washington president Bruce Allen suggested they might get another perk, saying they’d get in-game injury updates “even before the NFL or the media!” via the team’s mobile app.
The league didn’t offer any value judgements on Washington’s stance when we requested comment, rather citing their Personnel (Injury) Report Policy, which reads: “Team personnel are responsible for reporting in-game injury information factually and accurately as soon as possible for the benefit of the network television audience and the other media covering our games. To ensure fans in the stadium have access to the same information, these injury updates must also be posted on the stadium video boards, scoreboards or ribbon boards.
“In-game injury announcements to the media must be specific to a body part, accurate, and updated as warranted, including any changes to the player’s status for the rest of the game if it changes from the initial report.”
“As soon as possible,” would seem to preclude “Hang on let us text this out to the people who pay us,” but that still seems unclear.
While the idea of throwing a bone to the paying customers is not a new or bad one, considering many prefer to watch it on TV, this seems a step too far.
It’s also a step Dan Snyder’s business partners (who all have coaches who’d want to know this information ASAP as well) might not appreciate.