Louisville Courier-Journal v. NCAA

Press -- you're absolutely right.

I'll never forget the case of Muhamed Lasege, a Nigerian kid that U of L was trying to get eligible. He went through the whole process and the NCAA ruled that this kid who sneaked out of Nigeria, spent time in Russia playing for what he thought was a club team and finally sneaked away from them into Canada, had exhibited an "intent to professionalize" when he signed an agreement (as a minor, and not in his native language) to play for the team in Russia. That was deemed to be a professional contract.

U of L was really upset over the decision. Lasege took the NCAA to court, and what happens? U of L winds up filing a "friend of the court" brief on behalf of the NCAA, and joins the case on the NCAA's side.

The player actually amended his suit to name U of L as a defendant, claiming they represented him poorly and didn't give him access to an attorney throughout.

Lasege won his cases all the way to the Kentucky Supreme Court, where he lost on a 4-3 decision, with four judges who were graduates of the University of Kentucky law school voting against, him, two from U of L and one from Cincinnati for him!

Rick Pitino wound up paying for Lasege's college. He graduated in 3 1/2 years with honors, went to work straight out of school and never wound up playing any professional basketball.

That's a long way of saying that you're absolutely right. U of L will be on the NCAA's side of this fight. But the fact is, they wanted no part of enforcing this NCAA rule, to the point of putting themselves at some risk by refusing to toss the reporter out.

 

The NCAA cracked down on the eligibility rules for foreign athletes awhile ago, making anybody who played for a pro team inelgible. . . period. It was too hard to distinguish which pro teams were serious pro teams (paid players, etc.) and which weren't so, to avoid problems, they lumped all the players together. They did this with hockey players a long time ago, eliminating players from one level of Candaian amateur hockey and college hockey ended up losing a lot of really good players.

As for NCAA events. Even though the game might be at Louisville, the game is technically an NCAA Championship and the NCAA controls the stadium completely so just like a concert that is held in an arena on campus, everybody who goes to the event is subject to the rules of the NCAA regarding it. Anybody who breaks the rules is subject to removal from the game so even though it might be really hard to find a blogger in the stands, it can be done. Believe me.

I've worked with the NCAA for a number of championships and some of the things they do to show control of the event is amazing. For the Final Four, they have staff members who scour Ebay and other sites looking for people selling tickets and, if they can get the section, row and seat number, they have the host school call the ticket holder (they track who has every ticket in the building) to tell them to pull the tickets offline or risk being able to purchase tickets to further events. They have done this many, many times.

 

And yet, it's all about the scholar-athlete and their experience in something other than athletics...
(not flaming the messenger, SID, just the message)

 

Eric,

I'd agree with you if we lived in a progressive state. But I don't think the Kentucky General Assembly can ever be labeled progressive.

Also, the state right now wouldn't do anything to risk the wrath of the NCAA. With the new arena coming downtown, the commonwealth of Kentucky has 350 million reasons why it'll need the NCAA more than ever starting in 2010.

 

I don't think the NCAA should apologize for making whatever money it can for its membership. That's part of its mission. It's mission of helping the student-athletes is something totally different and, believe it or not, they actually do a lot for student-athlete welfare (it just gets lost because somebody gets declared ineligible and they refuse to allow athletes to be paid (huge can of worms that I don't want to open).

 

USOC used to do this. If you wanted Olympic credentials, you had to staff the U.S. Olympic Festival (RIP).

 

The NCAA does require that in order to cover the Final Four, your outlet must have staffed the first and second rounds and the regional as well. Media outlets can't step in and just cover the Final Four.

 

But isn't that because EVERYONE wants to cover the Final Four?

 

Yes, but why is the NCAA choosing to make this an issue in college baseball when the NBA, NFL, MLB and other successful entities don't seem to be concerned about it.

And the NCAA's selective enforcement of this is suspect, too. ESPN.com can blog live from the Final Four? That's not "brought to anyone's attention?"

Though the NCAA make have a legal argument, it's still a losing battle. They can't stop it. And there doesn't seem to be any reason too. It's not hurting anyone who does have the broadcast rights.

That's the NCAA's big problem. They're worried that someone might make a few bucks on their event without them getting a cut.

 

Now that much of the CWS is over, the NCAA has issued the following clarification to its blog "policy":

"Coverage of a recent incident involving a reporter having his media credential revoked at an NCAA championship requires clarification on both why this action was taken as well as current NCAA policy. The reporter's credential was revoked because he continued to blog live play-by-play reports from the press box after being repeatedly asked to stop. Any transmission of live play-by-play information by any entity other than a media rights holder is prohibited.

"Following this incident, the NCAA issued incorrect information to credentialed media which stated that in-game updates of any type are prohibited. In fact, in-game updates to include score and time remaining in competition are permissible by any media entity whether credentialed or not.

"We apologize for any confusion that may have resulted from the incorrect information."

 

Oh, well that clears it all up. Thanks for F-ing everything up for us NCAA.

We apologize for being a bunch of overreactionary jerkoffs and trying to tell people how they can do their jobs.

They never could have gotten away with the live telecast argument since blogs are usually done several mminutes after something happened.

I knew they would back down, but to do with with an oops instead off we were wrong is just pathetic.

 

And sorry we didn't tell you until Louisville was eliminated. Our bad!!