well I can always reword it if you like. :) Woody
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 2:18 PM, Gatornet Admin <[email protected]>wrote: > Whew! I'm glad you said GEORGIA! That description comes very close to a > guy that I know who lives in Tennessee. ;-) > > Randy > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Woody <[email protected]> > *To:* [email protected] > *Sent:* Saturday, August 15, 2009 12:46 PM > *Subject:* [gatortalk] Re: [gatornews] SEC trying to crack down on fans > taking photos or even describing events from the stands > > I dont see how they can really stop it to be honest. People are gonna > wanna watch the game on espn and cbs anyway! Like someone is gonna walk > away from their TV watching the game.. just to go to their computer to see a > picture some fat old bald guy from Georgia attending a Florida game posts a > pic to facebook to share with the GatorNation. How can they stop it.. ban > any electronic device from any and all games? Good luck with that. > > Woody > > > > On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 12:04 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I'm getting sick of this whole thing. No first hand accounts of >> practice, no pictures or video of practice or the games. >> >> I read all the news reports/articles on Gator paysites and from >> newspapers. Same old story. >> >> If you start limiting what all the fans can do - you become the NFL. And >> most college football fans are people that were turned off by the NFL. Now >> they want to turn off the college fans. >> >> They're making it hard to be a fan. >> >> I wonder if this is just the boost that minor league and high school >> football needs? >> >> Or will people just turn away from sports in general? >> >> >> >> -------- Original Message -------- >> Subject: [gatornews] SEC trying to crack down on fans taking photos or >> even describing events from the stands >> From: Helen Huntley <[email protected]> >> Date: Sat, August 15, 2009 10:59 am >> To: [email protected] >> >> http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1027680.ece SEC won't stand for views >> from stands >> >> By Michael Kruse <http://www.tampabay.com/writers/michael-kruse>, Times >> Staff Writer >> >> Published Friday, August 14, 2009 >> ------------------------------ >> Dade City judge and University of Florida grad Pat Siracusa is such a big >> Gators football fan that he sometimes wears a replica Tim Tebow jersey under >> his black robe on Fridays in the fall. >> His profile picture on his Facebook page is a photo he took with his phone >> from the stands at last January's national championship game. >> It's a good memory. >> But the Southeastern Conference might use a different word to describe >> that image: illegal. >> The SEC, one of college sports' biggest, richest, most prominent leagues, >> earlier this month sent to its 12 schools an eye-opening new media policy. >> It places increasingly stringent limits on reporters and how much audio, >> video and "real-time" blogging they can do at games, practices and news >> conferences. >> But even more interesting is that the policy also includes rules for fans >> in the stands. No updating Twitter feeds. No taking photos with phones and >> posting them on Facebook or Flickr. No taking videos and putting them on >> YouTube. >> A league spokesman said this policy was meant to try to keep as many >> eyeballs as possible on ESPN and CBS — which are paying the SEC $3 billion >> for the broadcast rights to the league's games over the next 15 years — and >> also on the SEC Digital Network — the league's own entity that's scheduled >> to debut on SECSports.com later this month. >> Many are saying this makes the bosses of the SEC look like fuddy-duddy >> technophobes — that they don't "get" new media. >> They get it. The language of the league's policy suggests they know all >> too well the high-stakes fight that's just beginning. >> If exclusivity is the aim, and it is, because it's that exclusivity that >> commands the billions of dollars from TV networks, then the fans aren't just >> fans anymore. They're looking more and more like so many cell phone-equipped >> individual information feeds. >> And here is the digital-age realization: The SEC's greatest supporters are >> now also the SEC's biggest competitors. >> • • • >> All sports leagues have rules for what reporters can and can't do. It's in >> a credential agreement. All sports leagues also have rules for what fans can >> and can't do. It's often found on the backs of tickets. This is not new. >> What's different about the SEC's new policy is twofold: >> 1. There's still a media policy and a fan policy. But the fan policy talks >> an awful lot about media. >> 2. It's the most stringent language yet in college sports. >> Due to the angry response from columnists, bloggers and fans, the policy >> is "undergoing a revisionary process," said Charles Bloom, the league >> spokesman, and a final version is expected on Monday. But here is the >> language as it stands now: >> Ticketed fans can't "produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or >> disseminating) any material or information about the Event, including, but >> not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, >> reproduction or other information concerning the Event … ." >> Very broad. That's on purpose. >> "So if I call my buddy and tell him what's going on," said Siracusa, the >> judge with the Facebook photo, "that would be in violation of the policy, >> too?" >> Much of the fan reaction over the past week — aside from open-mouthed >> exasperation — has focused on enforcement. Namely: How? >> Said David Hooper of the Tennessee fan site Rocky Top Talk: "They'll be >> chasing shadows." >> Take Florida Field in Gainesville. A capacity crowd there is a lot of >> fans. >> "I mean, you have 90,000 of them," UF associate athletics director Mike >> Hill said last week. "That's a hard thing to police." >> In truth, though, the league isn't so worried about the judge's Facebook >> photo, or his phone call. They're not so worried about text messages and >> tweets. >> What they're worried about is what the judge's phone, and everybody else's >> phone, will be able to do in two years from now, five years from now, 10 >> years from now. >> "I would guess," said Mike Masnick, the editor of the respected blog >> techdirt, "that they're realizing that anyone can be a reporter or a >> broadcaster these days. >> "And for them," he said, "that's pretty scary." >> • • • >> The rub is this: The audience isn't the audience anymore. >> New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen has a term for this >> fundamental shift: the people formerly known as the audience. Arizona State >> professor Dan Gillmor is more succinct: *We the Media*. That's the title >> of his book on the subject. >> Two Australian researchers published a paper on this just last month. The >> title: "From Broadcast Scarcity to Digital Plenitude: The Changing Dynamics >> of the Media Sport Content Economy." >> They wrote about "user-generated content," "technological convergence," >> and "emerging zones of conflict," but the problem for the SEC, and any other >> league, can be boiled down to this declarative sentence: >> "The exclusivity that can be secured in the domain of television cannot be >> guaranteed online." >> Go to YouTube. Search pretty much any game anywhere. Some of what pops up >> are clips taken by fans with their phones from the stands. They're almost >> always grainy, or jumpy, and generally low-quality. >> They're not going to be that way forever. >> The only certainty in technology is that it gets faster and cheaper, >> exponentially, always. >> Imagine, then, a day not too far away when fans from their seats will use >> their phones to stream onto the Internet a video feed, for free, that >> conceivably could approximate the images for which ESPN and CBS have paid >> billions of dollars. >> That in mind, the SEC's new media policy is "prescient," said Dave >> Hendricks, who blogs about "media and monetization, attention and >> permission" at attentionization.com. >> "They're thinking into the future," he said. "They're saying the biggest >> competitor for us is someone in the stands who can live vlog a game" — that >> is, video blog — "which is an inevitability. That's their real competition: >> sophisticated video bloggers who are going to siphon off the audience." >> "I would say," said Masnick, from techdirt, "it's not only plausible, but >> probable. The idea that you could create an amateur citizen media sporting >> event broadcast is very much in the realm of possibility." >> And then? >> Exclusivity is "a myth," he said. "I don't think you can enforce >> exclusivity in a world where the technology and the ease of access makes the >> walls that used to be there just melt away." >> And then? >> "If it reaches the point where it's not just 15 people doing this, it's >> 1,000 people, it gets more and more difficult to stop," he said. "At which >> point you either stop letting fans into games or you figure out a way to >> deal with the fact that fans are going to do this." >> And then? >> "The days of the multibillion-dollar exclusive contracts are possibly in >> jeopardy," said Gillmor, the author of *We the Media*. >> "The idea that people can't capture their own lived experience is a losing >> proposition," Clay Shirky said last week. Shirky is an expert on new media >> and the author of *Here Comes Everybody*. What he writes about, he has >> said, are "systems where vested interests lose out to innovation." >> That's what this is: a system (the SEC), with vested interests (billions >> of them), trying with this new media policy to at least postpone the third >> part of that progression. >> "But in the end," Masnick said, "you can't stop what technology allows." >> *Times staff writers Drew Harwell, Kim Wilmath and Shannon Colavecchio >> and Times news researcher Shirl Kennedy contributed to this report. Michael >> Kruse can be reached at [email protected] or (727) 893-8751.* >> >> >> >> > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
