The New York Times - The windows near the elevators on the 21st floor of the Sheraton Meadowlands Hotel are fit for football espionage. The Giants’ practice field sits about a mile in the distance, past the maze of highway lanes and off-ramps, past the massive parking lots.If a coach stands on that field and looks back at the hotel, all sorts of paranoid possibilities come to mind. Visions of men in disguises renting rooms, setting up telescopes and video cameras, and gleaning valuable information from the opposition. Over the years, Giants coaches were said to have sent security personnel to the hotel to conduct sweeps.* They were never reported to have found anything or anyone...
Murray Associates, a New Jersey company that provides eavesdropping protection, has been hired by several professional sports teams to ensure secure contract negotiations, said the company’s president, Kevin Murray. Three of the teams that hired Murray were N.F.L. teams — all within the past five years.
Murray said he believed espionage in sports was more prolific now, with so much money and fame at stake. And bugging an office “is easier now than at any time in history.” For example, Murray said, someone could stick a prepaid cellphone on the ceiling of an office, turn the ringer off and set the phone to auto-answer. Then that someone could listen from anywhere in the world.
“Some people sound on the paranoid side, but they’re really just normal people, following their instincts,” Murray said. “And usually, they’re correct. Coaches would be silly not to be checking.”
So coaches will continue to look for spies behind trees, in bushes, behind the wheel of the team bus. If you are not paranoid, they say, you are not paying attention.
The view from the Sheraton Meadowlands Hotel demonstrates how spying is possible, if not far-fetched. And for N.F.L. coaches, that is enough. (more)
* These sweeps were not conducted by Murray Associates.
