NCAA Bans Bloggers

Both reporters or anyone else who dares to write and blog about a sporting event while it is taking place are crooks, says the NCAA.

Mike Silence has been writing about the confrontation between the NCAA and the press and public at his page. Much of this was prompted by a reporter tossed from a game for live-blogging what the game status was.

Here's the NCAA stand, according to the Oregonian:

"The NCAA claims ownership rights to any during-the-game information and that it can be distributed only through those outlets to which it has granted rights. That means ESPN, in the case of the super-regionals. Lawyers quoted in press accounts seem to believe the NCAA is within its rights.

But it is perplexing as to how a newspaper blogging half inning by half inning -- posting information that has been on live TV many minutes before -- somehow threatens the NCAA or ESPN's revenue stream. One could also argue that once broadcast the information is public.

And we won't even get into the notion that the NCAA can threaten newspapers and their reporters, but also claims that no one anywhere in a stadium can blog during the game. Do they really think they will stop some fan with a PDA from blogging out of the left-field bleachers at the CWS, even if it is just to a few buddies back in the dorm in Corvallis?"

Mike has more info here and here. And he pretty much lays down the facts in the NCAA claims:

"If we sit back and take this, we have only ourselves to blame."