I made a few invited trips as a journalist, always for the Sheet. Those focused on sports alternated between coverage of events/tournaments and institutional visits. There was football, basketball, motorsport, surfing.
The inviter can be a club, a federation, a company, and the interests are varied, commonly with the aim of expanding coverage of a certain game/championship or publicizing an action.
A few days ago, I was with other Brazilian journalists in Leipzig (Germany), at the invitation of RasenBallsport, on a tour that included visiting the club’s facilities (popularly called RB Leipzig, controlled by an energy drink company) and watching the match against Leverkusen.
A quartet of “creators”, people who produce content (videos, etc.) and display it on digital platforms, also participated by invitation.
Relaxed and playful, they are not focused on the news, but on adding value and building a community around a niche. In the case of RB, the objective was to promote the team to a younger audience in Brazil.
The program included, in addition to a visit to the club’s new HQ (very modern) and the stadium (Red Bull Arena), interviews with two strikers (Brazilian Rômulo and Norwegian Nusa) and a manager.
Formal, within a protocol. It is valid, because this is how the journalist understands the functioning and objectives of a given club and, if he wishes, publishes similar material – generally, monotonous.
The unusual, the different, often arrives outside the official script: what is seen or heard in the corridors, informally, which may not even be that newsworthy, but escapes the trivial, from “the new headquarters can house 300 employees” (RB communications advisor) to “my idol is Neymar” (Rômulo and Nusa), ranging from the uninteresting to the almost obvious.
Therefore, I report what the reader may not find elsewhere, even though I am not the only one who knows. These are the behind the scenes, not always told.
“I took the 40 because it was the one I had. There was also the 30, but I wasn’t going to take it, it belonged to Sesko.” (From Rômulo, during lunch, avoiding the shirt number of the Slovenian, RB’s top scorer who left before he arrived, in order to avoid comparisons)
“Do you know how much Rômulo earns? 125 thousand euros. Tax free.” (From someone who was at his house to play video games, about his monthly salary, around R$820 thousand)
“This way, this way, this way.” (From RB advisor, worriedly emphasizing the direction to be taken during the tour of the HQ, noting that Jürgen Klopp, famous former Liverpool coach and head of football at Red Bull, was in a meeting, in an open room, and could be interrupted – certainly would be – by journalists, which was not desired)
“What they publish is always hot, trust me.” (From a representative of the Bundesliga when we were talking about the football-focused Kicker magazine, adding that the outlet “gets its hands dirty” with sources to obtain insider information)
“It swings there.” (From Rômulo, in a comment to a “creator”, about what he would do if he received an offer to play for Santos, his favorite team)
All without cameras, without recordings. Everything can be denied. But I saw and heard everything.
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