NCAA ejects blogger from baseball tournament

[SirFozzie]

Yes, I know the old caveat they throw in TV broadcasts that the accounts of the game cannot be used without the (Sanctioning body)'s approval, but this takes it to a ridiculous level..

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9728156-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

According to the Courier-Journal, staff blogger Brian Bennett was approached by NCAA officials in the fifth inning of a game between the University of Lousville and Oklahoma State, told that blogging "from an NCAA championship event 'is against NCAA policies (and) we're revoking the (press) credential and need to ask you to leave the stadium.'"

This was someone covering the hometown team for their paper.

One word comes to mind. Re-fucking-diculous.

[SunDevil]

http://deadspin.com/sports/today-in-monumentally-moronic-decisions/the-ncaa-hates-the-series-of-tubes-267854.php

o the more and more we think about this NCAA rule about no live-blogging in the press box, the more insane it seems. It might be one of the dumbest Internet decisions we've seen an athletic organization make, and considering Major League Baseball once did a promotion with Creed, that's no small achievement.

Even Josh Centor over at The Double A Zone -- the "official blog" of the NCAA -- calls the policy "arcane" and sorta blames ESPN ... but we can't put this one on the Leader. It's not like the College World Series marks the first time anyone has ever live-blogged something from press row that was on ESPN.

Let's take a look at some of the parameters of the idiocy.

• If we are understanding the NCAA correctly, someone who is sitting in a press box providing "live" updates from a game is breaking some sort of ridiculous "rights" policy, but someone who is watching the game on ESPN and doing the same thing is not. We do not know if this applies to anyone who might update their site from their blackberry from the stands. We hope they eject their ass too. Oh, and if a friend of yours texts you asking the score, you better not tell write them back. The moral of the story: If someone from the NCAA is giving you grief about live blogging a game, just step 50 feet away. The NCAA has now, by definition, given the proverbial guy in the basement better access to his/her readers than someone in their own press box. SMART.

• For years, the Associated Press and other wire services have been providing in-game updates to editors from the site of important events. (This is why the game story of a title game is almost always ready the second the game's over.) This is different because ... well, because the Associated Press just stopped using typewriters, we guess. Fortunately, nothing involving the College World Series will ever be considered an "important event." So wait: When exactly does it count as "acceptable" to file a game story? Will NCAA hoods be scoping the press box, making sure all the typing is limited strictly to Word files? DON'T HIT THAT SEND BUTTON, BUDDY.

• Hey, why didn't they throw Chuck Klosterman out of the Final Four? That would have been incredibly entertaining to read about.

• CSTV -- one of the two national media outlets that actually cares about the College World Series -- had been planning on live-blogging every CWS game. They can't now. This is an outstanding decision by the NCAA, because it denies coverage of a signature event to a fanbase that might want to read it.

It's gonna be fun to watch them scramble in the next couple of days, though. We give this policy, oh, a week.

[RendeR]

NCAA == Another Dinosaur that has outlived its usefulness to society. Someone pleasr hit them with an asteroid and allow evolution to come up with something viable.

[gstelmack]

Combined with the fact that you can't find a CWS score anywhere on the CNNSI site (I tried, it's not even in their "More Scores" section, not a single College Baseball score to be found), they're doing a good job of making sure no fans can find out what's going on.

[Mr. Wednesday]

From what I've gleaned about this on slashdot, this is the first time the NCAA has prohibited live blogging at one of their events, and the Louisville paper that is involved is interested in making this a test case. There may be freedom of the press implications.

[Calis]

From what I've gleaned about this on slashdot, this is the first time the NCAA has prohibited live blogging at one of their events, and the Louisville paper that is involved is interested in making this a test case. There may be freedom of the press implications.

Well this is the first year they've enforced it. The rule has been around for quite some time from what I gathered. No idea why all the sudden it's being enforced and it's an absurd rule.

In the case of Louisville, they were also kind of a surprise pick to even get to host the super regional and I think they were doubly trying not to anger the NCAA.

What sucks even more is that people have done it every year previous, and they didn't let it be known that it would be disallowed this year until RIGHT before the Regionals. Rivals, BA, and some other places I believe already had all the tickets and everything setup to blog, so they're just out of luck.

College Baseball NEEDS all the help it can get, they shouldn't be making it harder. It is damn near impossible to get up to date scores and info on games. I gave up on any of the major sports sites, and have been using the forum at Rivals College Baseball site to get info from other people.

[ctmason]

I'm with the NCAA on this one.

This whole Internets thing is a fad and they just need to wait it out. They're doing the right thing by trying to bring the CWS back to a time when even fewer people cared about it.

[Young Drachma]

NCAA == Another Dinosaur that has outlived its usefulness to society. Someone pleasr hit them with an asteroid and allow evolution to come up with something viable.


Agreed.

[st.cronin]

Is there a principle behind this rule that somebody can explain and perhaps defend, even as a devil's advocate? I'm confused about what its supposed to accomplish.

[JHandley]

Purely devil's advocate:

Same basic principle as local TV blackouts for other sporting events. The fear is that people will stay home instead of pay to attend the games. Newspapers and magazines have lee-way because their accounts of the game are delayed. TV and Radio pay to have access to give live accounts of the game. Bloggers don't pay, and give live accounts. Because it's published over the internet, it can't be blocked out locally.

That's the principle behind upholding the rules. Defending it will be someone else's job because I can't do that.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Is there a principle behind this rule that somebody can explain and perhaps defend, even as a devil's advocate? I'm confused about what its supposed to accomplish.
I think the conflict is that the NCAA considers live blogging as a form of broadcasting, whereas the newspaper considers it a form of reporting. If the newspaper is serious about challenging it, I suspect it could get messy, because I doubt there's any directly applicable case law (to the extent that the NCAA is under first amendment restrictions, which I don't know if they are or aren't in this case).