((HT: Tuscaloosa News/Morton))
The policy, distributed to member schools Thursday and obtained by The Tuscaloosa News on Friday, also places restrictions on TV broadcasts, limiting news stations to clips of no longer than three minutes and allowing highlights for only 72 hours after the conclusion of a game.
Charles Bloom, associate commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, said the intent of the new restrictions is to protect an agreement between the SEC and XOS Technologies, which last month was announced as the host of the SEC Digital Network.
Certain exceptions will be granted to the schools themselves as well as those who have paid for specific rights, such as ESPN and CBS, which together have paid the SEC more than $3 billion to broadcast games for the next 15 years.
But these new rules will affect local news outlets across the region ((some pictured, thanks Dusty Compton/Tuscaloosa News)), some of which have been following SEC athletics for decades.
“I’m disappointed,” said Gary Harris, sports director for WVUA-TV, Tuscaloosa’s only locally-produced TV station. “I’m disappointed that the SEC ... would now try to put limitations on us.
“Once we start working within the framework of the rules, I’ll have a much better understanding of how it’s going to affect us. But it’s going to affect us — no doubt about it.”
In addition to game coverage, the new media policy also affects pre- and post-game press conferences, practices or any other “event sponsored or hosted by the Southeastern Conference or by any one or more of its member institutions.”
Chris Rattey, new media director for The Tuscaloosa News and TideSports.com, said “monopoly” was the first word that occurred to him when he heard about the SEC’s new rules.
“From my perspective, in having been in the online industry for 10 years, it’s over the top and bordering on ridiculous,” Rattey said. “It’s almost as if the SEC is monopolizing the content, and business is really getting in the way of journalism.”
The SEC Digital Network is expected to launch in time for the upcoming college football season. Bloom said that some video will be available free to fans while other video content will be for paid subscribers only.
“In that regard, it’s a great arrangement for the SEC,” Bloom said.
However, Bloom said the policy isn’t iron-clad and is subject to change, especially with regard to non-game footage such as practices and press conferences.
“We are dealing with the first year of an agreement,” Bloom said. “There will be questions and issues that come up that we’ll need to address after the season starts. Those will be taken into account.”
Since receiving the draft policy on Thursday, several athletic departments for SEC institutions have been scrambling to incorporate the new rules into their own credential issuing procedures.
“As a Southeastern Conference member institution, we are bound by the policy we received this week from the SEC Office,” said Doug Walker, the University of Alabama’s associate athletics director for media relations. “We will work closely with those who cover us — as well as with the SEC Office — in dealing with any issues that may arise.”
Athletic departments from around the league have expressed concerns about the new rules. Ranging from the wording of the policy — which, as it now stands, limits credentials to “full-time salaried” employees (many news organizations pay hourly wages, employ part-time workers and use freelancers) — to the task to implementing its mandates.
From a legal standpoint, the SEC is balancing between solid, precedent-based ideas and the unknown, grey areas of untrodden legal ground.
“We believe that the new policy is an arbitrary attempt to limit independent news reporting on SEC sporting events and ultimately to restrict the coverage that SEC fans have long enjoyed and have every right to expect as supporters of SEC teams and taxpayers financing SEC institutions,” said David McCraw, vice president and assistant general counsel for the New York Times Co., owner of the The Tuscaloosa News.
“We hope that the SEC will agree to sit down with news organizations to work out a new and mutually acceptable credentials policy. Failing that, news organizations will pursue appropriate legal remedies,” he said.
Mike Smith, a Tuscaloosa attorney with more than 20 years experience in media law, said some of the new SEC media rules — such as restrictions on live game content — are protected by legal precedents already established in media and contract law.
“You’ve got new technologies,” Smith said, “and you’ve got broadcast rights that have become so valuable that the people holding those rights want to see them protected, and the people granting those rights want to make sure they continue to bring top dollar.”
Enforcing the rules, however, is another matter.
For example, the new SEC rules also place restrictions on what ticket-holders can do while at the game.
A summary printed on the back of each ticket (likely starting next year with football, since tickets for this season already have been distributed) forbids fans from taking photographs or sharing accounts or descriptions of the event.
Does this mean the SEC will prevent sports fans from posting the pictures they take on social network sites like Facebook? Probably not, Smith said.
But it does mean that the SEC wants the ability to have full control of the memories that these events can generate — something that could hamper the careers of artists like Daniel A. Moore and Rick Rush of Tuscaloosa who have made names for themselves with SEC-themed artwork.
“I think [the SEC] sees the value of the long-term preservation of historic moments ...,” Smith said. “The traditional form of media helped built the prosperity of the contest, and that has to be weighed against the rapidly changing face of the way we get information today, the value of the rights of the institutions and the right to copyright or license.
“That’s a pretty delicate balancing act.”
Mark Bradley of the AJC continues the assault here in black...
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