Tag Archives: sports

New blogging rules from the NCAA

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It seems pretty clear that the NCAA wants to prohibit anything approaching real-time coverage of the event. Companies –like the one I work for— pay millions for the exclusive broadcast rights to collegiate sporting events. A reporter (or a dozen reporters) up in the press box live blogging the game –in theory– dilutes the value of the rights we purchased.

“The NCAA this week announced a formal program limiting how often bloggers with media credentials can update their blog while attending championship college events.

The sports governing body set blogging limits for each sport. For example, those at football games can update their blogs three times per quarter and once at halftime. For basketball, bloggers can post five times per half, once at halftime and twice per overtime period.

The policy even sets rules for water polo (three per quarter, once at halftime), bowling (10 blog posts per session) and fencing (10 per session).”

The phrase that caught my eye was “bloggers with media credentials.” If
I’m just a fan, can I blog at will? If your credentials are at stake,
you probably wouldn’t fight this. But if you’re  a civilian, you could
tell the NCAA to piss off. Does this mean the NCAA thinks only bloggers
with some media connection can/will have a significant audience?

Rediscovering high school football

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Cover story on Broadcasting & Cable looks at how some local TV stations are “rediscovering” high school football:

“Vital to high school football’s rise in popularity is the fact that technology has finally reached a point where the typical teen, raised on YouTube, can easily upload video and share highlights from that night’s game. Station managers say the interactive nature of new media — whether it’s user-generated video, scores or trash-talking — is a critical component of their school content.

Hearst-Argyle Television has taken the interactive concept a step further, training students in seven markets to be “sideline reporters” for its social-networking platform High School Playbook. A total of 60 students shoot high-def cameras, edit and post their work on the Web site.”

The good news –and the bad news– is this is no longer the turf of any medium. I know TV, cable and newspapers are jumping in. I hope there are radio stations doing them same. How hard would it be?

Let’s say there are 10 HS football teams within the range of my station’s signal. I recruit and train 10 reporters (and 10 back-up’s) on how to shoot/edit game highlights. They upload same to the station YouTube channel (sponsored, of course) and we promote like mad. Incentive? Maybe some pocket money. Best video of the season wins a video iPod (others get iPod Shuffles and iTunes gift cards).

Game Day 09.01.07

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One floor below my office is the Learfield Sports Operations Center. On Saturday, the place was hopping for the opening weekend of the college football season. Our guys produce 19 college sports broadcasts here (and some more off-site).

The play-by-play audio comes back to Jeff City where our producers and board operators mush it all together and send it back out –via satellite– to about 800 radio stations from coast to coast. Think shuttle launch but more people will be pissed if something goes wrong.

They start back in May and then work their asses off for the next four months. I won’t even try to mention everyone by name. And this short (6 min) video doesn’t begin to capture the energy (and sometimes tension) of “game day.” But Broadcast Operations Manager Tom Boman does a nice job of summarizing some of what it takes to get all these games out to stations.

Once again, shot with the Casio EX-S770 and edited in iMovie.

Blurring the lines between fan and sportswriter

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Thanks to Edward for pointing to this story on the Kansas City Star website about sports blogging:

Meet the new American sports fan — an Internet-induced mix of sportswriter, play-by-play announcer, talking head and regular guy. His name is Will McDonald and, from his one-bedroom apartment in Cleveland, the University of Iowa doctoral student, painstakingly records, on his blog, the comings and goings of each Kansas City Royals game.

For the sports world — the fans, the players, the leagues and the teams — the rise of the blogger has raised complicated questions about broadcasting rights, how to reach an audience, and where the sports fan stops and the journalist begins.

The lines have blurred so much, in fact, that the New York Islanders plan to give bloggers their own box next season. So much that the NCAA escorted a reporter out of the press box two weeks ago for blogging a live baseball game. So blurred that sports teams are holding meetings about how to handle the rise of the blogger, and no one seems to know what comes next.

I could be wrong, but I think the Islanders are on the right track.

Blogger removed from NCAA baseball game for blogging

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A blogger from the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., was expelled from a college playoff game for live-blogging.

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 hits close to home. The company I work for is one of half a dozen big players in collegiate sports marketing. We pay millions for exclusive broadcast and marketing rights for the sporting events at our partner schools. Does that extend to a reporter blogging int he stands? Does it extend to a fan blogging in the stands? I think our “company position” would be that it does. If and when it comes up, I think we have to handle it correctly but I’m not sure just that would be.

NBA taps into Second Life

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“The NBA has launched an elaborate series of interactive milieus in the popular online virtual world Second Life, including a 3D NBA store, a mock NBA arena and even a press center where Web users can roam and play using video-game-like avatars.

Second Life, which claims close to six million registered users worldwide and is visited by more than a million or so every two months, has increasingly become a testing ground for marketers and media companies. The new NBA Headquarters in Second Life is the first such exploration of the virtual world phenomenon by the league.”

[MediaWeek.com]

iTunes adds Major League Baseball video highlights

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On Friday, Apple announced they’ll be offering Major League Baseball video highlights for the 2007 season on the iTunes Store. MLB video on iTunes will include a daily 25 minute MLB.com Daily Rewind highlight show and two weekly Games of the Week, featuring full versions of the best games from the National and American Leagues.

Customers will be able to download individual episodes of MLB.com Daily Rewind and each Game of the Week for $1.99, or purchase a Multi-Pass for a month of Daily Rewind shows for $7.99 or a Season Pass for every Game of the Week at just $19.99. [Podcasting News]

I’m not a baseball fan but I do love highlights (of almost any sport). And I’ll probably invest $1.99 just to see how these look on the Apple TV. (“I just don’t know what you’d watch on that Apple TV thing.”)

Regular readers know the company I work for has the multi-media marketing rights for 32 college athletic programs. I sure hope somebody is working on something similar for our schools.

Blog lemonade

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VirginaThe “West Virginia” printed on the shirts players wore after winning the NIT title with a 78-73 victory over Clemson on Thursday night is missing the last “i” in “Virginia.” WVU sports information director Shelly Poe said the NIT printed the shirts.

Embarrassing? Maybe a little for the NIT. But certainly not for West Virginia. Their accomplishment is in no way diminished. But it will get a little ink for a day or two.

If I were the Resident Blogger for West Virginia Athletics, I would be having some fun with this.

  • Invite fans to send in videos of themselves wearing the T-shirt and explaining the misspelling.
  • Post an explanation loaded with typos.
  • Have a fake professor (with British accent) explain how the spelling on the shirt is –in fact– the original, “correct” spelling of “Virgina”

Blogging lemonade.

Disclosure: The company I work for handles multi-media marketing for Clemson.

March Madness stats, YouTube deal

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“As of 4 p.m. on the first day of the NCAA tournament, CBS Sportsline said it had logged 1.5 million visits and 800,000 registrations to March Madness on Demand, the site’s free live video service. Just before the tip off of the Maryland-Davidson game, 189,000 users were waiting in line to watch the game live. Impressive. Meanwhile, CBS cut another deal with YouTube, this time to stream March Madness highlights on the site. The section is sponsored by Pontiac, which is also sponsoring coverage on the air.” — Lost Remote

Blogging the Hoosiers

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Disclosure/Disclaimer: The company I work is the current multimedia marketing and broadcast rightsholder for Indiana University (and a bunch of other high profile colleges and universities). The views and opinions expressed on this blog are my own and have no connection to Learfield Communiction.

Newspaper BlogsIt was brought to my attention today that a couple of Indianapolis newspapers –The Herald-Times and The Indianapolis Star– were blogging about the Hoosiers. Hoosiers Insider and the Hoosier Scoop are pretty typical for newspaper blogs.

Hoosier Scoop had audio of a post-game press conference and included short video clips from the press conference and students storming the floor following Indiana’s 71-66 win agaisnt No. 2 Wisconsin. And they had someone (an intern?) live-blogging the big game.

“3:38, second half: Indiana 64,Wisconsin 59”

Companies like ours –and there are only a handful– pay a lot of money for exclusive broadcast and marketing rights. But we’ve entered the world of blogs and podcasts and YouTube and camera phones and maintaining “exclusive” control of the sporting events becomes something of a challenge.

And what’s a “broadcast” now? Just radio and TV? And the fans are getting in the act. How do we stop them from putting audio, video and still images on their blogs and in their podcasts? And should we stop them? Should we encourage them?

But back to the Indianapolis blogs. Here’s what I’d do:

Hold a contest to find the best Hoosier blogger in Indiana. To be eligible, you have to have been blogging for at least six months. Fans come to a website to vote on the three finalists. The winner gets a brand new laptop and digital camera…and a seat in the press box for every home game, where they blog the game. What the hell, let’s plut a webcam in the booth so fans can watch the announcers. I’d have our on-site producer pulling play-by-play audio highlights and making them available to post. All of this, of course, would be sponsored.

I’d leverage our broadcasts and access to coaches and such, to out-blog the newspaper guys.

I remember, back in the mid-nineties, the first time we saw a university include webcasting in their bid specs. It seemed almost… cute. A novelty. I can’t wait to see what the next ten years bring.