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SURVEYING THE LANDSCAPE
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Pirate Notebook No. 311
Monday, July 9, 2007

By Denny O'Brien

NCAA not blogging around

©2007 Bonesville.net
All Rights Reserved.

Bloggers beware. The NCAA is policing the press box at its championship events, and you might be the primary perps targeted for ejection.

Forget that policy about no cheering in the press box. The NCAA has bigger fish to fry, and those pounding their keyboard during live events are prime suspects for intense investigation.

Just ask Brian Bennett. The Louisville Courier-Journal scribe was cuffed and stuffed by the NCAA police for providing a live blog on his newspaper’s Web site during Louisville’s 20-2 annihilation of Oklahoma State in the baseball Super Regional.

Because Bennett’s blog discussed game action — but not play-by-play — it was considered to be in violation of the multimedia rights agreement the NCAA has with both CBS and ESPN. In other words, the NCAA doesn’t want anyone competing with CSTV’s GameTracker or ESPN’s 360 coverage of games.

That’s quite a compliment to Mr. Bennett, actually. Seems the NCAA fears that his cyber musings might compromise the excitement of real-time play-by-play in its textual glory.

Rubbish.

The Louisville Courier-Journal Web site isn’t so desperate for content that it staffed Bennett to blog each pitch. But it is creative enough to increase the entertainment value of a sport that can use any avenue of exposure it can get.

If the NCAA is seriously concerned about play-by-play documentation of games it oversees, the closest competition is the thousands of fan message boards that post live game threads. And the NCAA has no chance of stopping that.

At least this isn’t the case at all college sporting events. Though blogging hasn’t been a common practice at East Carolina, there is no policy stating that it is off limits at Pirates events, and Director of Athletics Media Relations Tom McClellan sees no reason to create one.

"Unless someone from a higher authority approaches us and asks that we curtail or eliminate the blogging practice from a national, league or organizational directive, I really can't find a justifiable reason why we would prohibit blogging from Web sites that are officially affiliated with East Carolina, its opponent, conferences or those which are considered established and recognized traditional media outlets," McClellan said.

"Perhaps I'm missing the boat," he added, "but I'd consider that additional exposure and a means for our great fans to get added information, insight and a birds-eye 'text-view' for events that perhaps they can't attend."

The NCAA would be wise to follow ECU’s lead here. Especially with low-profile sports like baseball that could benefit from the attention.

NCAA fumbles Duke LAX ruling

On one hand you have to admire the NCAA. With its decision to grant Duke lacrosse players an extra year of eligibility, the NCAA displayed a contrasting humanitarian side to its iron-fisted reputation.

But on the other hand — the objective one — you have to question why it chose the infamous Duke lacrosse case to play the sympathy card.

In doing so, the NCAA no doubt avoided intense media scrutiny. The last thing it needs is more bad press over the perceived notion that it doesn’t have the best interest of the student-athlete at heart.

A year’s worth of Duke tuition says that thinking played a huge role in the decision.

As noble an act as it might be, the NCAA should have denied Duke’s request. Because last I checked, it was Duke’s decision to cancel its own season, not something that was unfairly forced upon the Blue Devils’ top-ranked program.

Sure, it’s a nice gesture. After all, these players did have a full season of competition taken from them.

But just how fair is this move to other programs across the country? Not very.

Besides, the NCAA shouldn’t burden itself with cleaning the mess made by the Duke administration’s mishandling of the situation.

Send an e-mail message to Denny O'Brien.

Dig into Denny O'Brien's Bonesville archives.

07/08/2007 07:27:09 PM

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