Are game statistics public domain?

There is no such thing as "official" high school stats, except for state tournament games where they have actual statisticians keeping the books.

Therefore, the book you keep in the press box is just as good as the 10th-grade student manager doing it in magic marker at the other end of the press box.

If you think the team stat guy does it better than you, let him do it. If you see him down there chewing on crayons, better do it yourself.

As far as what to do if somebody else is stealing them from you, you could set a trap like I did higher up the thread -- but that was way back in the pre-internet days. These days it's probably more work than it's worth.

 

I don't really listen to the radio but I've had similar things happen with the local TV stations.

I'm somewhat of a stat nerd so my previews and blog entries tend to be very detailed and full of random information (Joe Smith averaged 4.3 yards per carry last week in the second quarter of Rural High's win over Urban High) and it's never a surprise when that same information ends up on a telecast. And being since the TV reporters are going to 34 different games each night, my guess is that those stats aren't coming from their own reporting.

From time to time, I haven't done a game preview and I've had a TV guy call me up and ask what happened. I once went to a track meet and a cameraman's assignment sheet was simply the "Athletes to Watch" that we had published in that day's newspaper.

It happens. At first I got upset but it is what it is.

Besides, who am I to judge? There have been plenty of times that I've used information from another newspaper/source (Quarterback A threw for 300 yards last week) without attribution. So let he who has never done that before cast the first stone.

 

A breath of fresh air.