Keep it to yourself? Live blogging sports events

I thought I had blogged about this before, but I guess I haven't.

You know how media organizations pay big money to the sports leagues to have exclusive rights to broadcast games, and therefore want to make sure that no unauthorized competitors rob them of their exclusive broadcast rights.

ReadWriteWeb discusses the latest broadside against live blogging of games:

The NCAA [released] a new policy for live blogging of collegiate sporting events....

The policy provides for limited blogging by credentialed bloggers only. I.e., American football bloggers get a maximum of 3 posts per quarter, and 1 at halftime. For baseball, it's once per inning, for golf -- 10 per day. Bloggers are also required to submit their coverage to the NCAA's Blog Central directory and to include the NCAA logo and link on their posts.

But at least they're allowing it.

The International Cricket Council is considering banning sites provide live blog coverage of cricket matches without paying for coverage rights.

Coincidentally, I was discussing cricket with one of my co-workers (of Indian origin) this morning, and mentioned the fact that, at least on my satellite system, I cannot see cricket matches at all unless I pay a pay-for-view fee. As a result, I have no understanding of cricket whatsoever, as I only see the highlights coverage that Sky Sports News provides. This leads to the following impression of cricket:

A man gets into the batter's box.

He hits the ball and runs to first base.

Another man gets into the batter's box.

He hits the ball and runs to first base.

More stuff happens.

The game ends with a score of 370 to 2.

Perhaps cricket has written off the U.S. and just wants to make money off of expats who have settled here. But somehow, I don't think that restricting coverage is the answer. If anything, they should be begging bloggers to cover cricket matches, in the hope that enough interest is aroused to induce ESPN2 to devote 5 days of coverage to a cricket match, thus resulting in advertising revenues AND increased popularity for the sport.

Meanwhile, the NCAA is being silly also. Perhaps ReadWriteWeb is extreme in comparing the NCAA to the RIAA, but if they're truly worried that a blogged account will detract from their TV viewership, then perhaps they'd better look at the way their TV product is being presented.

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