Blogger Kicked Out of Stadium for Live Blogging the Game
This is unbelievable but true - a blogger had to leave the stadium because he was posting live updates of the NCAA baseball tournament game on his newspaper's website. Even his press credentials were revoked for the crime of "blogging."
The argument was that live reporting of a "game in progress" violated the broadcasting rights which were sold exclusively to ESPN and CBS.
The NCAA says bloggers can write about the game before it starts or after it's over. In between, they can blog about "the atmosphere, crowd and other details," but not about the game itself.
What's the next restriction for such college sporting events ? No carrying cameras or cellphones inside the stadium. No calling friends from the stadium for giving ball-by-ball updates. Wonder if the sporting associations can control the dozen mediums through which information can flow out of the stadium in real-time.
"If I buy a ticket to a game and my brother calls my cell phone and asks what the score is, should I tell him that it would infringe on the NCAA's rights? "
Source: Chicago Tribune [behind registration firewall]
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Reader Comments:
That's a great thing to happen to bloggers who think they are next only to press. They should be restricted like this.
The same also holds true for other sporting tournaments. "Blogging" may not be explicitly mentioned, but when I was covering the ICC Champions Trophy in October/November 2006, their guidelines stated that the reporters may not update scores live. They could update up to three reports an hour, is what it said, I believe, but not "live scores". I can't be sure whether it's good or bad... it would depend which side of the rule you're on! But it's a way to safeguard the interests of those who have paid for the rights to publish scores 'live'.
I wonder what NCAA will do, if you sit home watching Fox Sports and then live blog. Can we be sued then?
Weird!
Hmm, blogging is soon going to new face of press..
Take care
Strange. How on earth did the NCAA even be aware of a blogger updating his blog while at the stadium ?
@anjanesh - he was live blogging the game while sitting inside the press box.
@scribbler - that's news. Wonder how these guys can block news from flowing out via cell phones and wi-fi enabled cameras.
for a five day test match of cricket, no one should write anything about the match for five days? Can a writer write something at the end of each day when game is paused? Extending that logic further, can we blog something during tea breaks?
How about those who watch live from TV and write about it?
Without watching the match at all, if I write some imaginary numbers as score etc, will it be crime (score I write may or may not be actual score)
What if one person telecasts live say on phone and some other person updates the blog from elsewhere listening to the call?
obvious, this can happen, as companies pay a lot to give live progress of a game.
Well, that what was signed for by ESPN & CBS. Good for them -- NCAA got their price
I was kicked out of a high school football championship game for the same thing, in 1997! Of course it wasn't a blog per se. We were doing a high school sports dot com and the President of the high school sports association for my state actually personally kicked me out of the stadium.
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