You're Outta Here!

The NCAA expels a blogger from a baseball game.

WHO KNEW a sports blog could cause so much trouble?

Brian Bennett, a sportswriter for the Courier-Journal in Louisville, had written for his paper's Web site during a few NCAA baseball games and received warm responses from the league's relatively humble fan base. Then, right before the Super Regional games two weeks ago, an NCAA memo given to reporters said that because the NCAA had sold its exclusive live broadcast and Internet rights, "in-game updates" and "blog entries" were not permitted "between the first pitch and the final out of each game." Mr. Bennett consulted with his editor about the terms of his press credential, which reporters agree to in exchange for access privileges. According to Mr. Bennett and the paper's counsel, the credential did not mention blogging during games, so he continued blogging until an NCAA representative kicked him out of the press box.

The NCAA claims that his blogging violated its copyright, regardless of the press credential terms, although courts have ruled that the facts of an athletic event (e.g., a home run) cannot be copyrighted. Perhaps realizing this, the NCAA has since issued a long series of reconfigurations, explanations, retractions and corrections on the terms of its press credentials. Credentials now specifically prohibit any "written descriptions" (on blogs or otherwise) of "in-game action" by employees of a credentialed news organization until after the game ends. This means a credentialed reporter at an NCAA game can be expelled if a colleague blogs about the game while watching a TV broadcast at home. NCAA associate general counsel Scott Bearby says that despite these blanket terms, blog updates during a game are okay so long as they are not "live play-by-play."

The framework for what is "live" and what is broadcast, and even what is past or present, is disintegrating as new technologies with near-contemporaneous text updates blossom. Still, other than revoking a press credential -- which are given to a tiny minority of potential bloggers and texters -- event organizers have increasingly little enforcement power over who can write about their events and when.

But the NCAA shouldn't be fighting media interested in their games in the first place. If it's worried about losing money, the NCAA is cutting off its nose to spite its face. Image-free blogging seems unlikely to diminish the value of the live broadcast rights sold in this case to ESPN (which wasn't even consulted in the decision to kick out Mr. Bennett). More publicity instead generates more interest in these sports and their players. The NCAA's actions to limit the distribution of information about its games run counter to the long-term interest of fans, schools, the NCAA itself and its athletes -- whom the NCAA professes to treat as scholars rather than piggy banks anyhow.