- December 21, 2009 9:19 am
Of all the things an organization shouldn’t be these days is that of a technologically deficient and incompetent organization. The NBA apparently wants to milk TV/network deals for all their worth while simultaneously ensuring they further remove value and “closeness” from the fans the so desperately seek. Continue on…
A few months back, the NBA issued a statement saying that all social networking done by players, coaches, team members, etc., was to be done only after all official news interviews and other “official” means had wrapped up. Stupid and pointless but ok, I’ll go along with it. Unfortunately for Brandon Jennings of the Milwaukee Bucks, he became the poster child for the broken mess that is the NBA’s technological image, fining the player $7,500 for breaking the bogus rule the organization has mandated. What was so threatening to the precious revenues of the big networks that now monopolize sports news?
“Back to 500. Yess!!! “500″ means where doing good. Way to Play Hard Guys.”
Way to be classy NBA. Again, the blanket ban on personal social networking during official media coverage is stupid to begin with. But could some common sense be used from time to time? I mean no harm or actual news was given up. Anyone else disappointed?
Tech Dirt > ESPN
Anyone following sports the last few months has seen a rather harsh crackdown on live blogging of professional events by media present (we’ll come back to that). The belief that banning any tweeting or live blogging during games will keep profits high is far from the truth. Have you ever followed a game by a live blog type of coverage? It’s good for “to the point” information and quickly read through. However, it’s far from the visual experience watching it on TV or seeing it live would be. Though the rich suits in charge of these mega-million dollar teams don’t have the slightest clue on how their market operates. Do you really believe that a die hard sports fan, the ones who give the leagues the most money, are going to stop going to games and paying for expensive sports cable packages and instead start following games by live tweet? Hardly. That type of thinking is ridiculous.
Now, back to that live blogging ban. The live blogging/tweeting ban varies somewhat from league to league, but they do share a similar set of rules. The biggest similarity being that all live blogging and tweeting is banned from 90 minutes pre-game up to 90 minutes post-game. The cause as well know is that these leagues want to protect revenue from TV deals and what not. Moving on, enforcing such a ban is extremely hard, almost impossible in fact with the only real threat being getting kicked out of a game. However, notice that these rules and penalties are all directed at people who are live at the game and live blogging. Simple work-around? Liveblog from home. Peter Sanders, a reporter for the WSJ did that very thing…
The NBA recently announced they were following in several other industries footsteps by banning any social networking use by players, coaches, and other staff alike. At first, many will come to believe it’s to prevent embarrassing situations and outbursts. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth and anyone with a grain of intelligence knows it. It really comes down to a simple explanation — Greed!
