Newspaper blogger ejected from NCAA baseball game

The analogy of plugging holes with your fingers as the dam begins to leak, comes to mind:

"The tighter you grasp the more star systems will slip through your fingers"

 

Article on the subject.

http://www.al.com/sports/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/sports/1182240927267940.xml&coll=2

 

As a blogger, and someone who has done some things with the live feed in the past, I'll say this. There is wi-fi in Tiger Stadium (you can get pretty good reception on the east side uppers and near the group boxes) and pretty soon there will be multiple providers of High-speed mobile access in BR. It's only a matter of time before we get rouge broadcast of games from someones camera phone.

One of the difficult parts of this issue is that currently broadcast rights usually include getting right-of-way to setup and use cameras and parking lot space to park satalite trucks. An "independent broadcaster" would only need seats for a few folks holding camera phones (and he'd probably be willing to pay for his own seats).

I feel that press credentials are no longer a nessecity or a goal for bloggers. Would it be nice to have a good seat, a table to put a laptop, easy stadium access, access to players and coaches after games, etc., etc. Sure it would, but i bet i could give just as good coverage sitting in the south endzone, getting opinion from the fans sitting around me.

I believe that this issue will be resolved soon, with different results for Pro and college leagues. LSU is a public university, and even though we are all proud that it uses no public money for athletics, its not like that money wouldn't be there if they needed it. And shouldn't I, as a taxpaying citizen of LA, have some right to what i am paying for? Many will shout that if universities lost the revenue they get for exclusive tv rights, programs would not have the money to run themselves, but this is a misnomer since almost all college football programs, including most of the BCS schools, already operate at a loss. Universities write it of as a way to advertise their university to students. Which is why I beleive the smaller univeristies looking for attention will not mind bloggers and the bigger universities will fight it to the death (just like Indie labels and bands vs. RIAA labels and bands have done in the piracy issue)

 

The NCAA came back today and said that they will allow any blogger or other media outlet, with or without credentials, to publish live scores and time remaining, but not play-by-play.

This is bad because trying to restrict play-by-play accounts of a live game is insane, and the paper in question will probably sue and (i hope) win. The good news though is that now, according to the ncaa's clarification, bloggers with or without press credentials have the right to cover games, so a copy of the NCAA media rule book should be all i need if a ticket taker has a problem with me bringing a laptop to a game.

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