NFL Bans Local Tv Access

[Nick]

The National Football League is banning most local television news crews from the
sidelines of football stadiums during NFL games. The new policy says local channels
- often the primary source for coverage - will no longer be allowed to shoot or air their
own footage on game days, before, during and after games.

According to 9news.com in Denver, team owners approved the restrictive rules at
an owner's meeting last March.

A major factor leading to the decision revolved around the league trying to protect its
intellectual property rights. That intellectual property, said the news agency, refers to
the league's NFL Network and an effort to drive more viewers to its in-house channel.

Critics are saying that taxpayers (read: fans, and non-fans for that matter) have spent
hundreds of millions of dollars to build new stadiums all across the country and now
the owners have turned them into private studios for the NFL's own in-house television
network.

www.SkyReport.com - used with permission

9News Denver (http://9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=fac9947a-0abe-421a-0161-cda9575d7154&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf)

Video Report - http://www.9news.com/includes/buildasx.aspx?fn=http://wm.kusa.gannett.edgestreams.net/news/1155300752390-08-11-06-nflsideline-10p.wmv&sp=http://wm.kusa.gannett.edgestreams.net/ads/sales/pre-stream/intelligentoffice8-06b.wmv

[Nick]

This should be huge story, one that is important not only to football fans, but to
fans of all major league sports and everyone on behalf of the public's right to
have access to the sights and sounds of the game, including local media'outlet's
interviews with players.

I don't understand why more people aren't talking about this. :shrug:

[kenglish]

Our local competitor, KUTV, has turned the public sidewalk in front of their station into a "studio". We call them the "Homeless News".

[invaliduser88]

Talking about bitting the hand that feed them. The local station are usually the ones that are doing all the pre-season and pre-game hype that is free advertising for the NFL.

[SamC]

The public has no "right of access" to a private ticketed event's "sight and sounds".

Like any good businessmen, the league is restricting venue access to those that have PAID for it.

[durl]

The public has no "right of access" to a private ticketed event's "sight and sounds".

Like any good businessmen, the league is restricting venue access to those that have PAID for it.

I agree with you regarding ticketed events. Even so, they're not rebroadcasting the entire game so it shouldn't be a big deal to allow the local stations to cover the game as a local sports story. It seems that next they'll be banning locally produced coaches shows. It's just a bad PR move.

And as invaliduser88 pointed out, it's seems to be another smack to taxpayers that have built most of the newer stadiums in existence.

[ntexasdude]

Greed knows no bounds.

[Nick]

The public has no "right of access" to a private ticketed event's "sight and sounds".Well, representatives of local tv, radio, print and web media aren't exactly the same as the
"public". Traditionally, sideline passes have been issued to the media, which has
not been the practice for the general public. Like any good businessmen, the league is restricting venue access to those that have PAID for it.
And I assert that "those that have PAID for it" includes the public, of which, our proxies,
members of the local media, and as such, represent and report to we, the public.

What's next? Are team owners going to hire al Qaeda terrorists to use stinger missiles to
shoot down the Goodyear blimp?

This isn't really about rights or access, it's about GREED on the part of NFL owners! Once
word gets out, and I hope it does, this highly unethical action will be about as unpopular as
ever-increasing gasoline prices in the face of record BILLIONS in profits by big OIL companies.

If this outrageous decision by NFL owners stands, I fervently hope and pray that every local
media outlet complete ignores the sport, prior to, during and after the games, and that the
networks and national publications stand with them in a show of solidarity.

"Sorry, folks, we know it's the Sunday Nite Sportscast, but there is no news whatsoever from any
of the football teams in the NFL today. Judging by the absence of cheering outside our local
team's publicly-funded stadium, this reporter thinks our guys lost another game -- what else?

Now, in college LaCrosse news, we think the Duke Bluedevils didn't play again today, but we're
not sure because Duke University, like all teams in the NCAA, have locked us out and are
prohibiting us from reporting any varsity sports news. :shrug:

Wait, this just in... the Podunk U. Chess Club won their match-up against Ipswitch Community by
a score of 6 -1. Go Podunk!"

:(

[bguppies]

The majority of people could careless if the local stations are allowed in to cover games and the teams.
In this day and age, a huge chunk of the TV demographic gets their news from major outlets, not local stations.
(I only bother watching the local stations for weather updates if a hurricane or strong storm is threatening)

And as for any media outlet boycotting the NFL.....
Get real.
Career suicide for any station manager who tries an idiotic move like that.
(let alone one in a market with a franchise)

Look at all the networks who cry about NFL rights fees being too high and we won't pay and will find other programming.
Then after their Neilsen ratings plummet (primetime and Sunday afternoons) without the NFL on their network, they are back when the next TV contracts come up, BEGGING to get back to showing the NFL.
CBS was the #1 network right before they let the NFL go. When they came back with their tail between their legs, they were last of the 3 networks.
NBC was in the same boat.
They were the #1 network and felt they could live without the NFL.
Last year they came crawling back as the last place of the 3 networks.
Until FOX originally took the rights from CBS, they were a joke of a network, which became a real network, as soon as they got the NFL and the credibility it brought.

The NFL has by far, the best sports product going, they know it and know what they need to do, to keep it at the pinnacle of sports.

Bill

[Masterdorf]

To add a point. Most places that the NLF teams play at were funded with tax payers dollars. Local goverments help fund the upgrading or building of the places that the teams play at.

The real reason why this was done was because the NFL Network was not making any money. The owners felt that they should control all aspects of the NFL brand. Now they are pushing the NFL Network hard.

Local TV station will still have game video from the ground level. What they are doing is having one local video camera on the field that will share this video with the other local station (pool video)

The field will be open to all local media at the end of the game to get interviews on the field. The locker rooms will also be open to all media outlet to record their own video.

Bottom line this is just the NFL looking to make an extra buck

[Stewart Vernon]

Actually... this is a lot like permitting reporters to view a movie, but forbidding them to take cameras into the theater to film it.

While some may not like it... it seems reasonable to me for an organization like the NFL to restrict media access to the entertainment portion of the program.

[djlong]

I have to be honest, I never like it when the "non-NFL" channel would play highlights of the game from their ground-level camera on the news. I mean, it *looked* cheap (and we're talking the Boston market here) and really did NOT show the highlights like any package containing the "network feed" footage would. If, say, Channel 5 ponied up the money to have the rights to highlight footage and Channel 7 didn't, well, you could see the difference in the two sportscasts. What I REALLY didn't like was in the days when WBZ (Channel 4, NBC back then) had the rights and STILL didn't play the footage from the game, preferring to show off their 'local' aspect by doing the highlights with their on-the-ground camera (way back when, I'm thinking the mid 1980s if memory serves).

[Stewart Vernon]

Oddly enough, I have the opposite experience sometimes with WRAL 5 here... They have portable HD equipment that they take for remote shoots... so I often see HD highlights on the sports for a game that I had to watch in SD... but I'm sure that is the exception more than the norm for most of the country.

[harsh]

The National Football League is banning most local television news crews from the sidelines of football stadiums during NFL games.I can see a small movement on the part of the stations to significantly reduce coverage of the NFL. It will likely be more difficult to maintain interest in the NFL if the masses don't get a dose of footage during the evening news.

If there were a concern that the material were being misused, I can see a legitimate concern. Otherwise, they are cutting off a major avenue of brand exposure.

[Nick]

NAB asks NFL to reconsider local coverage ban, repair
link between NFL teams and their communities".

Just as the 2006 NFL season is getting underway with its new-look television coverage, the NFL Network is coming under pressure from both sides of the ball. And when taking a look at the predicament that the 24/7 football channel has gotten itself into, some are starting to wonder who is really to blame. Not only are MSOs chop-blocking the legs out from under the league's in-house TV station, but broadcasters too are turning up the heat in order to stay in the game.

According to reports, Comcast has initiated a plan that would move the NFL Network to a new digital sports and entertainment tier, notifying its systems everywhere that at the beginning of the year, the country's largest MSO will only carry NFLN on this restricted package. The move, Comcast officials said on a conference call last week, would kick in just two days after NFLN's last live game of 2006. Reports have also suggested the new tier would cost Comcast digital cable subs an additional $5 per month.

The switch would take NFLN off Comcast's basic AND second-level digital tiers, sacking the channel into a position of reaching far fewer than the 7 million customers said second-level reaches. Although the network has refused to comment on the conflict, league sources have vowed to fight such a move saying cable operators don't have the right to punt the network to a sports-only tier. NFLN reportedly is demanding that operators carry its programming on an expanded-basic basis which would pipe the net into more than 68 million households.

The NFL Network also launched a monster ad campaign urging fans to demand their cable systems carry the channel or switch to either DirecTV or DISH for their football fix: It's been deals with the satellite companies that have largely enabled NFLN to huddle up its roughly 41 million subscribers. Not to mention that cable operators don't like paying an inflated cost-per-subscriber licensing fee for the channel while the NFL so heavily promotes its "Sunday Ticket" package on DirecTV.

The Comcast news comes on the heels of Time Warner Cable's scheduled drop of the channel from more than one million homes in football-less Los Angeles, football-hungry Cleveland, football-consumed Dallas and football-wasteland, Buffalo. The week prior, Insight Communications refused to pay the net a surcharge on live game carriage.

And in just more bad business practice news, weeks before this latest run-in with MSOs the NFL told broadcasters that their own local news crews would no longer be allowed to cover the games from the sidelines. In repsonse, National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) President and CEO David Rehr recently sent a letter to the league's new Commissioner Roger Goodell urging him to reverse the "poorly thought out" and "discriminating" policy. On behalf of local broadcasters across the nation, Rehr asked league brass to reconsider the ban and "quickly repair the crucial link between NFL teams and their communities."

www.SkyReport.com - used with permission

[invaliduser88]

With the Texans on track for a performance much like last year, maybe less coverage is a good thing....:lol:

[jrbdmb]

NAB asks NFL to reconsider local coverage ban, repair
link between NFL teams and their communities".

... football-wasteland, Buffalo ... ?!?!?!?!