When ESPN
NBA reporter Marc Stein wanted to break the news that the Golden State Warriors were going to replace their head coach, he was able to do it even though he was on a flight.
Stein had been in England on his annual pilgrimage to see his beloved
Manchester City soccer team in action. He was landing at
New York City's JFK airport on Sept. 24 when he got a tip that Warriors coach Don Nelson was headed out the door. Stein wrote the story while waiting for his next
American Airlines flight, but he needed one more source to confirm the details.
He got it when he was in the air -- thanks to AA's Gogo Inflight Wireless Internet Service, which is available on all
Boeing 767-200 flights and select MD80 and 737 aircraft.
He filed the story during the flight (
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5608982) and also tweeted about while using AA's Gogo service.
Stein tells OnTheFly: "The last thing I do before every NBA season is sneak off to England to pretend to be a Mancunian for a week and watch my beloved Manchester City. I've been following them for 30 years and making annual trips to Blue Heaven on AA pretty much every September since 1996
"The tricky part this time is that we unexpectedly had quite a bit of NBA news percolating during my trip (when it's usually a pretty quiet time because training camps haven't even started yet). During my layover at JFK after flying in from Manchester, awaiting my connecting flight to DFW, I started hearing rumbles that Don Nelson was out as coach of the Golden State Warriors. I had time to chase and write the story during the layover (after getting through Customs), but I still needed one more confirmation. Unfortunately, I couldn't get that confirmation before takeoff for
Dallas. So you can imagine my giddiness and relief -- fully expecting the story to be reported by someone else by the time I landed -- to find that this was one of the MD-80s outfitted with Wi-Fi.
"I'd never filed a story this way, but I connected with my Blackberry once we were airborne, kept firing off emails to various sources until I got my second confirmation and was eventually able to email the story in from 30,000 feet."