Stop printing so much paper at sports events

Today I read this bit from Zach Lowe’s wonderful “Ten things I like and don’t like” column and got very worked up about paper:

A weird press row tradition: At least once a quarter, team staffers hand out paper box scores to every media member. By the end of the game, it looks like someone opened two reams of 8-by-11 plain letter -- “PC LOAD LETTER? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?” -- and poured them all over our section.

Given how much information has been online for, like, 15 years, this has long seemed antiquated. Kudos to the Raptors for going paperless, with emailed quarter-by-quarter box scores, this season. Every team should do this immediately.

He’s right. All across the sports universe, people are handing out hundreds — maybe thousands — of pieces of paper at every live event. At a regular game, it’s up-to-date box scores after every quarter, plus info releases about injuries and whatnot. At an event with press conferences, like a big game or a draft, it’s up-to-date draft boards, up-to-date trade recaps, and interview transcripts. So, so many interview transcripts. Event employees walk around handing these out to media at regular intervals, and unless you say “no thank you” every five minutes, you’ll go home with an encyclopedia-sized sheaf of useless paper. It’s not unheard of for fans to get this stuff, too.

Let’s just stop this! Do what the Raptors do. If for some reason people in need of in-game box scores can’t just check any of the public websites that keep them updated, send them emails. Collect PDFs of transcripts and the like in one easily searchable online place. Password-protect it if you need to. If people need paper handouts because the wi-fi is spotty, then print them only on request. Maybe just make a few sheets and pass them around. If every sports organization did this, we would all save so much paper, not to mention all the time spent printing this stuff off, handing it out, then recycling it when it inevitably gets tossed unread.

2017 is going to present a lot of problems, and most of them will be very difficult to solve. This is a relatively small problem, but it’s widespread, and it’s simply solved, so solve it. Let’s get that easy W and save some trees, Sports.