OJR: The Online Journalism Review

NCAA Live Blogging Ejection

The NCAA tossed a live blogger from a college baseball game, but can they really enforce a ban like this?

Posted: 2007-06-11

I'm wondering what folks think of the NCCA's ejection of a live blogger from a college baseball game (story available here).

I don't see how a ban like this could ever work. Broadcast rights can be managed because it's hard to sneak big cameras and miles of wiring into a stadium, but live blogging can be accomplished via cell phone -- so what are they going to do, grab all the electronics at the turnstiles?

Responses:

From Robert Niles on June 12, 2007 at 11:18 AM

Well, the NCAA has the right to kick anyone out of its pressboxes that it wishes. Or to deny them press credentials. And I suppose they could even toss people in the stands that it found violating the back-of-the-ticket prohibition against broadcasting the game.

But, as the RIAA should have learned long ago, just because you legally *can* do something, does not mean that it is in your best economic interest to *actually* do it.

One ought to be able to distinguish between text live blogging and audio and video broadcasting. (I'd even argue that there ought to be a distinction between audio and video highlight blogging and continuous audio and video play-by-play as well.)

From Bryan Harris on June 26, 2007 at 6:09 PM

So the plantation is now kicking bloggers out of its fields. The truth is, there is no difference between "blogging" and submitting a news report during half-time. But when you won't let a kid whose last name makes you $10 million in annual licensing fees take a $300 watch from a booster, what can you expect?

And the NCAA's assertion that this is a "live depiction" of a game is outrageous. There's far more than a 10-second delay for a blogger, even typing 80 words per minute. There's nothing live about it, unless the definition of live now means five or ten minutes after the fact.

If they could pull it off, the NCAA would charge for press box seats. Of course, in Miles Brand's perfect world, it'd all be free to watch for everyone because they'd all be intramural sports anyway.

From Jason Marsteller on June 29, 2007 at 1:19 PM

FINA is already charging for all sorts of press row access at its World Swimming Championships. The Montreal Organizing Committee started doing it two years ago as a way to off-set their costs.

Melbourne kept up the precedent this year.

The swimming news community is starting to look at how to counteract that movement without getting into a public "hackjob" on the organization.