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Social Media Banned at College Stadiums: SEC Bans Twitter et al
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by Jon Azpiri | August 17, 2009 at 01:56 pm
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The SEC, arguably the most powerful conference in NCAA football, is reportedly developing a new "media policy" designed to restricts how much audio, video and "blogs," reporters can dish out during live games. The policy not only covers accredited media, but fans in attendance.
The Southeastern Conference's new social media policy appears to say that fans inside the stadium will be prohibited from relaying information to fans on the outside. That means that fans would not be allowed to post to Twitter, update their Facebook status, upload photos to Flickr or videos to YouTube.
A conference spokesman said this policy was meant to try to keep as many eyeballs as possible on ESPN and CBS — which are paying the SEC $3 billion for the broadcast rights to the conference's games over the next 15 years — and also on the SEC Digital Network — the conference's own entity that's scheduled to debut on SECSports.com later this month.
Just how exactly the SEC plans to enforce their social media policy remains to be seen. It's hard to imagine the SEC overlords would track the Twitter feeds and Facebook pages of the thousands of fans that attend their games.
The move seems to indicate that the SEC, and other major sports organizations, are nervous about how social media impacts their relationships with exclusive broadcasters. While fans posting grainy YouTube videos may not compete with major TV networks, technology may grow to the point where fans can produce live, quality streaming video of sporting events.
"I would say," said Masnick, from techdirt, "it's not only plausible, but probable. The idea that you could create an amateur citizen media sporting event broadcast is very much in the realm of possibility."
And then?
Exclusivity is "a myth," he said. "I don't think you can enforce exclusivity in a world where the technology and the ease of access makes the walls that used to be there just melt away."
Author Clay Shirky has a different take.
"The idea that people can't capture their own lived experience is a losing proposition," Clay Shirky said last week.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 13:49 on August 18th, 2009
So does this mean I cant see pictures of my friend Jimmy playing rugby at Tennessee anymore? http://ow.ly/kt9w . The great thing about Facebook and Twitter is that you can stay close with those your aren't geographically close to. Can I not see game photos of my friend playing? Kind of weak in my opinion