Increased Restrictions on Covering Sports Events
Credentialing Similar to Limits on Entertainment Coverage
Sep 19, 2009
Those who cover sports at the professional and amateur level face growing restrictions on access to events and on their use of the content they gather at games. Several sports leagues have attempted to control what is published or posted to Web sites.
The tool that leagues have used is the credentialing of individuals and organizations to attend events. For a number of years the Academy Awards have had restrictive credentials for those covering the annual televised award program. Some musicians also allow only a certain number of photographs to be taken during their concerts or at specified times.
Leagues have followed many of these existing limitations in trying to control the product that comes out of sports coverage. Efforts are being made to affect coverage coming out of training camp, practices, and press conferences, said media attorney Kevin Goldberg, who is special counsel at the Arlington, Virginia law firm of Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, PLC. “Other than the NFL itself or the NFL Channel, there’s no competition [for this content.],” he told a briefing on sports credentialing September 16 at the National Press Club in Washington.
Sports Teams Want Video Footage Available on Their Own Web Sites and Channels
Many teams now have their own Web sites and channels want to control video footage of games. In the New York Times of April 21, 2008, in “Tension Over Sports Blogging,” Tim Arango wrote: “League officials argue that too much video and audio on a newspaper’s Web site could infringe on rights holders — the broadcasters who pay millions of dollars to carry live games. And the leagues and teams have their own Web sites, carrying news accounts and footage, that are big business.”
Among the steps that the National Football League, National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball have taken are restricting the duration of audio and video involving team personnel. In addition, they have limited the length of time that video of a game can be archived on a Web site.
Goldberg said he can understand the different leagues’ interest in curtailing television access when they’ve sold broadcast rights for millions of dollars but argued these actions affect news coverage of games.
According to its policy, professional baseball believes a game has no news value beyond 72 hours, he added. But other implications can result as well, Goldberg told the Press Club forum. The NFL ‘s limiting the archiving of video content to 24 hours would prevent, for example, doing a retrospective on Sean Taylor, the Washington Redskins safety who was gunned down at age 24 during an intrusion at his Miami area home in 2007.
College Sports Imposing Restrictions in Issuing Sports Media Credentials
College organizations too have added restrictions as to who may apply for sports media credentials, and limited the use of photographs and video on newspaper Web sites in addition to permissible blogging of football and basketball games. Because of objections from some news organizations, the Southeastern Conference (SEC) revised its policy on coverage of events.
Subsequently, a group of news publications, including the American Society of News Editors, Associated Press Sports Editors, Online News Association, and the Radio-Television News Directors Association, protested the decision of the Big Ten Conference to make work produced as part of game coverage the property of the conference.
Amateur Sports Curtailing Publication, Sale of Game Photographs
Restrictions on content from games have extended to amateur sports, Goldberg noted. In his presentation before the Press Club, he cited the following instances:
- The Little League World Series Regional Playoffs in Waco, Texas, which are not even the Little League World Series, prohibited the selling of photos or giving away reprints for free. The rights for commercial reprints were sold to a private company.
- The Louisiana High School Athletic Association only allowed publication of photos on news print for girls’ basketball playoffs, not on the Web or for either commercial or non-commercial use.
- For the Illinois high school basketball playoffs, a full prohibition was imposed on the resale of photos taken at high school sporting events due to the athletic association contracting out those rights. But in this case no ban existed on taking photographs from the stands. Still, the Illinois Press Association sued in court saying that the First Amendment applies to the high school athletic association as a state and not private entity. Now newspapers can shoot photos for only non-commercial reproduction.
- In Wisconsin, the state athletic association is being sued in an ongoing case over its prohibition on streaming of audio and video content, although a broadcasting rights issue is not involved here.
Interestingly, in the professional realm, the National Hockey League has imposed no such restrictions, to speak of, regarding coverage of its games. Goldberg thinks the reason may well be that, in contrast to the other leagues, the NHL needs the exposure.
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