Louisville Courier-Journal v. NCAA

Seems as if the power-trippers up in Indianapolis had nothing better to do Sunday than monitor Brian Bennett's blog on the Louisville Courier-Journal Web site, then send a lackey to go eject Messr. Bennett from the press facility there in Derby City.

Here's the link to Bennett's blog: http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/bennett/blog.html

Is Louisville getting its lawyer involved?

Isn't this a big story?

How widespread is this? Any other folks doing live blogging from NCAA baseball this past weekend/prior weekends?

 

The good old NCAA knows how to pick and choose its battles. All of this over college baseball? I could see the Final Four. But this?

 

Because we know masses of college baseball fans would much rather read a blog about the game as opposed to watching it unfold on TV. (Even if it is ESPN)

 

I've said it 8,309,192 times: Screw the NCAA.

Rick Reilly said it best a couple years ago in the column about the Division III kid who couldn't compete in nationals because his coach erroneously entered him in the 5000m sted 10000m run and tried to change it four days before the race -- The NCAA can't stop the John Darringers, so they police the jaywalkers instead.

 

It's a point of concern for us, as we both have a CWS team and a beat writer who blogs.

It appears to me that this rule has been so inconsistently applied – any other paper bloggers booted from any other sites this weekend? – that it'll never hold up.

But, at least the first warning shot was fired before we get to Omaha.

 

Or what about this....since we know ESPN likes to fellate itself so much with reporting things first.... 'As first reported by ESPN's Chris Mortensen, Sal Paulintonio (sp?), Mike and Mike, Stephen A. Smith....'


Maybe they could just incorporate that on the blogs..

'As first broadcast by ESPN on the family of networks by the worldwide leader and described by Pam Oliver..Joe Ballplayer just hit a home run to put Louisville up 6-0'

 

This is NCAA shenanigans at their lowest.

I just wonder how far the C-J will take it, or if Bennett is "banned" from Rosenblatt?

And yes, Hejira, a certain Super Regional site of which you and I are intimately familiar had a piece of paper circulated with its credentials that left blogging open to much interpretation and also said posting live score/inning updates was OK.

 

The Ole Miss Rivals guy was threatened with ejection.

 

Bennett is a class guy, and is great at his job. I applaud the C-J for fighting this.

 

Concur. The lawyer's quote was gold. I'll be anxious to read Bozich's story on this tomorrow, to see if it indicates what the C-J did or intends to do.

Because this is clearly a steaming pile of...

 

One of the comments on that blog had a good point - what would, theoretically, prevent someone from sitting outside the fence or one a nearby roof and blogging?

 

Nothing. And it's being done in this tournament...blogging off the television.
This isn't that difficult. If the NCAA stipulates you cannot live blog from the press box, then you can't live blog from the press box. They either have the rights to do it, or have sold the rights to do it. I don't think they're out of line here.