All Sport Report

Fellow bloggers, meet the NCAA, today’s public enemy #1.

Brian Bennett, a reporter with the Courier-Journal in Louisville, KY was ejected from last Sunday’s NCAA baseball regional tournament game between the University of Louisville and University of Miami (FL) for blogging the results of the game. What was the big deal? The following memo from the NCAA office that was sent to the press box earlier in the day:

The College World Series Media Coordination staff along with the NCAA Broadcasting group needs to remind all media coordinators that any statistical or other live representation of the Super Regional games falls under the exclusive broadcasting and Internet rights granted to the NCAA’s official rights holders and therefore is not allowed by any other entity. Since blogs are considered a live representation of the game, any blog that has action photos or game reports, including play-by-play, scores or any in-game updates, is specifically prohibited. In essence, no blog entries are permitted between the first pitch and the final out of each game.

The link highlighted above is an actual transcript of Bennett’s blog, and an accompanying piece with his thoughts on the ejection. The newspaper is considering legal action against the NCAA, and classifies the ejection as a violation of First Amendment rights.

It’s understandable why the NCAA would feel pressure to eliminate blogging from press boxes, because they wouldn’t want to offer an alternative to watching the game outside of what ESPN paid good money for. At the same time, there’s not a lot of comp from bloggers to cut ESPN or the NCAA’s money that short. as this particular blogger feels.

A disparaging rant? We’re never short on those. A multimedia financial meltdown? Not likely from your friendly neighborhood blogger.