While professional sports continue to grow in popularity, reporting has also evolved to deal with the rise in fans' enthusiasm. Blogs have become a useful tool to those who do not have television or radio access to their favorite team. Despite its positive attributes, many sports leagues are viewing the blog as an invasive tool that allows for unauthorized information to be shared with multiple users in real-time.
The leagues began grappling with the issue of providing real-time information to fans long before blogging became popular. The National Basketball Association sued Motorola in 1996, alleging that Motorola engaged in federal copyright infringement and misappropriation of commercial advantage after Motorola installed real-time NBA scores on its paging devices. Motorola appealed the ruling against them, and in July 1997 an appellate court ruled in its favor. This led sports leagues to begin finding new ways of preventing online publications from effectively reporting data such as scores and play-by-play information.
Currently, leagues prevent online publications from reporting in a few ways. First, they negotiate exclusive Internet rights with sponsors. Second, leagues create conditions for the media that prohibits real-time reporting. This is most like the policy described by Frank Brown, National Hockey League group vice president.
"Online reports concerning NHL games while they are in progress may not consist of play-by-play accounts or descriptions of games," Brown said in an e-mail interview.
In addition, the leagues also have the power to simply refuse credentials to reporters who are bloggers or writers for Web sites or magazines. Major League Baseball has a similar policy.
"Due to size issues, we can only provide media credentials to online organizations that are considered our rights holders such as ESPN and Fox Sports," said Jon Blundell, a media relations specialist for Major League Baseball.
Blundell said all bloggers could receive quotes and satellite video highlights of games.
"Online blogging is the wave of the future," he said.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association came under fire in June 2007 when it ejected a reporter for live blogging at an NCAA Super Regional baseball game. NCAA's policy stated that "any blog that has action photos or game reports, including play-by-play, scores or any in-game updates, is specifically prohibited."
Following the event, the NCAA revised its blogging policy to allow reporters to blog in-game updates and scores, while limiting the number of blogs that could be posted during a single competition or session.
Just recently, the National Hockey League's New York Islanders created a separate press area devoted solely to bloggers, which offered all the same amenities as those given to traditional reporters.
Tyler Bleszinski, president of SportsBlog Nation, said he believes leagues need to be more open to bloggers and need to rethink their plans on regulation.
"I don't know how they plan on regulating [blogs]," he said in an e-mail interview. "Are they going to monitor all the blogs and then come over and say, 'Hey, you've written one post too many. We're shutting you down!' Seems pretty unrealistic to me."
The debate over live blogging is one that is likely to continue on the blogs themselves. From sports-law.blogspot.com to the NCAA's own blog (doubleazone.com), blogs seem to be the arena where individuals, journalists and members of professional sports leagues can come together to debate the issue of live blogging. But in the end, little has been done to create a policy that is acceptable to both reporters and the leagues.
Blogging is a technology that is becoming increasingly popular in sports journalism and one that is distancing itself from other forms of media. Unlike traditional print media, such as newspapers and magazines, sports live blogs allow reporters to deliver immediate sports coverage to fans rather than having to wait for stories to be published. This fast-paced coverage allows fans using blogs to receive information that at one time was either impossible to receive or took days to publish.
