Local media shut out of first tours as part of UO’s strategy

Wondering why you’re reading a story by The New York Times about the interior of the University of Oregon’s gleaming new, out-of-this-world Football Performance Center, instead of a story by your own local newspaper?

It’s because the UO gave the Times access this week, and gave Sports Illustrated magazine exclusive first dibs last week, before allowing any local reporters to see the new facility paid for by UO super booster Phil Knight.

The UO has told all local and regional news reporters that they cannot visit or get a tour of the inside of the facility until this coming Monday.

It’s all part of the UO’s big, bold ongoing push to make sure Oregon football is front and center nationally.

“For this particular project, we were hoping to get national recognition,” said Phil Weiler, the UO’s assistant vice president for strategic communications. “We were concerned that if we gave local media (first access), that national media wouldn’t want to come (later).”

To carry out its plan, the UO contacted Sports Illustrated and told the prestigious national magazine it could have exclusive first media access to the latest extravagant, multimillion-dollar gift from Knight as long as Sports Illustrated would promise to publish a multipage spread on it, Weiler said.

When Sports Illustrated hit newsstands and homes on Thursday, the “Leading Off” section in the front of the magazine contained six pages of photographs of the UO facility by Sports Illustrated photographer John McDonough.

“Leading Off” normally contains three two-page photos on three different subjects.

McDonough, along with two freelance videographers for the magazine and Register-Guard photographer Paul Carter, who was hired by the magazine to help with the shoot, had visited and photographed the UO facility on July 25. They were led on an all-day tour by a Portland representative of ZGF Architects who knew Carter worked for The Register-Guard, Carter said.

The Register-Guard published Carter’s photographs both in print and online on Thursday, a day after Sports Illustrated first published its photographs online.

Meanwhile, at the UO’s invitation, the Times visited the facility on Wednesday, six days after the magazine’s tour.

Asked why local media weren’t invited this week when the Times toured the interior of what the UO recently dedicated as the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex, in honor of the maiden names of the mothers of Knight and his wife, Penny, Weiler said it was his “understanding that a day or two after SI came, national media would be allowed.”

Weiler said he believes other national media besides The New York Times were invited this week but said he wasn’t sure which publications.

Monday’s media bash constitutes the official start of the 2013 Oregon football season, including media interviews with selected players and officials in the morning, and a tour of the new football facility in the afternoon.