You’d think collegiate sports governing body might look favorably on increased coverage for their baseball tournament, but au contraire reports the Courier Journal’s Rick Bozich. (link swiped from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)
A Courier-Journal sports reporter had his media credential revoked and was ordered to leave the press box during the NCAA baseball super-regional yesterday because of what the NCAA alleged was a violation of its policies prohibiting live Internet updates from its championship events.
Gene McArtor, a representative of the NCAA baseball committee, approached C-J staffer Brian Bennett at the University of Louisville’s Jim Patterson Stadium in the bottom of the fifth inning in the U of L-Oklahoma State game. McArtor told him that blogging from an NCAA championship event “is against NCAA policies. We’re revoking the credential and need to ask you to leave the stadium.”
Courier-Journal executive editor Bennie L. Ivory challenged the NCAA’s action last night and said the newspaper would consider an official response.
“It’s clearly a First Amendment issue,” Ivory said. “This is part of the evolution of how we present the news to our readers. It’s what we did during the Orange Bowl. It’s what we did during the NCAA basketball tournament. It’s what we do.”
U of L circulated a memo on the issue from Jeramy Michiaels, the NCAA’s manager of broadcasting, before Friday’s first super-regional game. It said blogs are considered a “live representation of the game” and that any blog containing action photos or game reports would be prohibited.
“In essence, no blog entries are permitted between the first pitch and the final out of each game,” the memo said.
As was discussed elsewhere, it is expensive to purchase a live broadcast license from the NCAA. As a college radio manager, I can attest that was one of the most difficult negotiations that we worked out (we provided live broadcasts of baseball, lacrosse and women’s sports in exchange for basketball, football, and no advertising during the game). Similarly the technology exists in 2007 to send out live coverage of the game on a blog, via a cameraphone, video camera hooked up to a PC or any number of broadcast technologies. I repeat, live blogging is a broadcast technology and is therefore licensable under NCAA broadcast rules and not under traditional journalistic rules.
Therefore this loser can bite it. McLuhan says you have a hot medium, so IN YOUR FACE.