The SEC Will Not Police Your Tweets. Just Your Video.
Much ado has been made over the SEC’s recently released media policy. Frankly, much ado should be made over it. The new policies wouldn’t just prohibit things like video and pictures and updates to Facebook and Twitter; they would, if legally viable, prevent you from even calling your friend during the game and letting him know that Tim Tebow just healed a leper in the third row.
The SEC has since backed off that strategy, thanks to complaints from all angles, and some poor wording of the original ticketed fan policy. But just because the SEC has decided to stop doing one dumb thing doesn’t mean they’re not still stupid. The SEC is a basically the heroin addict that’s decided to lay off the heroin and switch to Demerol. This is still very bad:
But “the line is drawn at game footage video,” Mr. Bloom said. “We want to protect our rights to have video between the conference and its members, and ban the commercial sale of photo images. Fans can post photos on their site or Facebook page, but they can’t be for sale.” Mr. Bloom added that technology was becoming so sophisticated so quickly that the conference wanted to protect itself against new innovations in coming years.
This has been lost somewhere in the Twitter mess, or maybe just because it’s a three-plus-year-old argument: Leagues seeking to restrict video of the games on the Internet are actively hurting themselves. They’re telling fans that the only way you can enjoy the leagues’ products is on the leagues’ terms. What’s that? You want to showcase your favorite player making a one-hand grab, which might be seen (at no cost to the league) by hundreds of thousands of people on YouTube? Well then f*** you. You f***ing thief.
Some leagues get it right (the NBA, especially). But it seems now more than ever that NCAA media policies are trending the way of the NFL. It’s sad, but it is the NCAA. What did we expect?




I discussed the rumor mill surrounding Billy Gillispie elsewhere yesterday, but it appears as if now, there’s no more mongering to go around: 