Media Credentials

With more and more media outlets utilizing the Internet “sports coverage is becoming increasingly complicated with restrictive credentialing provisions at all levels of sports” (Seidenberg, 2009).  Both professional and college sports have begun to place restrictions on press credentialing.  “The leagues are often asking those who cover them to agree to give up valid copyrights of their own products in exchange for covering an event” (Seidenberg, 2009).  How does this affect the First Amendment?  “No First Amendment right exists to have access to a stadium or other event venue” (Seidenberg, 2009).  The actual sport itself is not copyrighted because “it is an unscripted even happening in real time” (Seidenberg, 2009).  The moment the copyright exists occurs when a person “captures an image or sound.  The copyright is owned by the person who does that, not by the league” (Seidenberg, 2009).   

Professional sports and college sports have begun to impose strict limits regarding coverage of games on the Internet.  An interesting case NBA v Motorola, Inc., involved an online gambling company using pagers to relay information regarding NBA statistics, to be used for gambling and fantasy sports leagues.  The NBA won the initial case; however Motorola won in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. They affirmed, “that no underlying script exists in a game and that the information at issue was public and did not involve misappropriation of any broadcast video or audio or the interception of NBA data” (Seidenberg, 2009). 

“Leagues are maintaining that they own the copyright photographs and video that someone else took at games because these are league events” (Seidenberg, 2009).  When media photo or video is taken at a league game, it is done so because the league has issued a license to cover the game.  Some of the stipulations in the licensing require the journalist to wear the logo of the teams sponsor.  The media photo and video can only be used for editorial purposes.  In some cases the media is denied these credentials.  UFC’s Dana White denied two reporters (one from ESPN and the other from CBSSports.com) press credentials and access to the UFC events because he “didn’t consider their writing worthy of his company’s PR file” (Wagenheim, 2011).  These two journalists were reporting the news and White essentially denied both of them press credentials because their articles in the past had not been favorable in the eyes of Dana White.

White is not alone in his feelings to eliminate reporters from writing non-favorable articles.  Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks blogged “proposing the banishment of Internet writiers from NBA locker rooms” (Wagenheim, 2011).  The difference between Cuban and White is that David Stern the commissioner for the NBA would never allow this.  Whereas White is essentially the commissioner for UFC so he can do whatever he wants.

Does this seem unfair to journalist?  Of course it does. But, “there is a relative lack of case law on this subject” (Kirby, 2001).  Some of the media outlets who have challenged this subject include arguments that involve “First Amendment, antitrust, intellectual property and contract law” (Kirby, 2001).  This will continue to be a struggle between the media and the sporting leagues for years to come.  Unless the media outlets ban together collectively, this will always be an issue. But until then, we can always rely on Twitter for our up to date online sports information.  It will be interesting to see if the leagues will go after copyright issues on Twitter.

(Kirby, 2001)

Kirby, K. (2001, October). When sports team restrict access. Retrieved from http://www.rtdna.org/pages/media_items/when-sports-team-restrict-access180.php

(Seidenberg, 2009)

Seidenberg, J. (2009, September 09). Legal issues affecting online coverage of sports. Retrieved from http://suite101.com/article/legal-issues-affecting-online-coverage-of-sports-a149496

Wagenheim, J. (2011, April 13). Strikeforce's move into the bigs includes bush-league writer ban. Retrieved from http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/jeff_wagenheim/04/13/credentials/index.html