Rugby League has control
Paddy Lewis
THE English Premier League starts this weekend. But last weekend the next tier down Football Championship started – a great opportunity for the lesser clubs to get some press coverage in the major English papers before the world’s most over-paid sports stars crack into action. And coverage they would have had – if clubs had given journalists accreditation to matches. Brighton and Hove Albion and Accrington were the only clubs to give accreditation last Saturday.
It seems the clubs, in their desire to control the almighty dollar, pound or euro, are worried about their agreement with newspaper publishers over where news-media outlets may syndicate content, how quickly pictures are published and the extent to which readers may engage with the content during a match (i.e. livescoring and suchlike). Thus, only two clubs allowed journalists into the ground to cover a game.
In the past, newspapers were only allowed to publish scoring updates in certain ‘windows’ during a game. As one major English paper put it, “…the dispute crosses an ideological divide: the media see free reporting of matches as an essential element of news access, but some clubs feel it would impinge on their ability to monetise events on the pitch.”
The clubs are clearly stupid. It’s been a while since I had a press pass, but that hasn’t stopped me from reporting on games (sure, my deadlines haven’t been as tight as say an internet news site, and I don’t get to sit in the press box much).
The English Premier League (EPL), if the dispute isn’t resolved in time for this week’s start, could end up looking like idiots.
Imagine if the Guardian newspaper said – “Righto, Manchester United won’t give us accreditation, so we’re going to cover the game off the telly and we want all our readers at the game to tweet live updates and their opinions to this text number (txts costs 99p each)”
They would be coining it – people love interactivity and feel important if they’re asked to do something by a newspaper (you only need to look at our major dailies’ facebook pages to see the reactions they get when they ask readers for help). Meanwhile the EPL will come across as the rich but inefficient plutocrat it has become in recent decades.
It’s something I don’t understand about professional sports in the UK and here (American pro sports seem to do it OK). You can click through four pages at the New Zealand Herald to get to a live scoring feed which isn’t really live scoring, and has rudimentary stats.
Professional sports should be doing their own thing – having stats, running commentary, maybe an audio feed (TV rights would preclude a live TV feed) – on a site that attracts advertising and other marketing options. Lots of people often can’t get to a TV to watch a game, but more importantly, it would allow the club or franchise to control the content and develop a stronger fan relationship.
God knows our professional sports employ enough people to do this sort of thing. Even more interesting is using the fan interaction to get more insight (sure, most of it will be crap, but there are some passionate ones out there who think they know more than your average sports journo). I’m amazed as to why no-one has taken it up.
English football and our professional sports don’t realize everyone with a smartphone is a journalist these days. Once the papers realize it too, the petulance shown by football last week will be treated with extreme prejudice in the future.
It seems the clubs, in their desire to control the almighty dollar, pound or euro, are worried about their agreement with newspaper publishers over where news-media outlets may syndicate content, how quickly pictures are published and the extent to which readers may engage with the content during a match (i.e. livescoring and suchlike). Thus, only two clubs allowed journalists into the ground to cover a game.
In the past, newspapers were only allowed to publish scoring updates in certain ‘windows’ during a game. As one major English paper put it, “…the dispute crosses an ideological divide: the media see free reporting of matches as an essential element of news access, but some clubs feel it would impinge on their ability to monetise events on the pitch.”
The clubs are clearly stupid. It’s been a while since I had a press pass, but that hasn’t stopped me from reporting on games (sure, my deadlines haven’t been as tight as say an internet news site, and I don’t get to sit in the press box much).
The English Premier League (EPL), if the dispute isn’t resolved in time for this week’s start, could end up looking like idiots.
Imagine if the Guardian newspaper said – “Righto, Manchester United won’t give us accreditation, so we’re going to cover the game off the telly and we want all our readers at the game to tweet live updates and their opinions to this text number (txts costs 99p each)”
They would be coining it – people love interactivity and feel important if they’re asked to do something by a newspaper (you only need to look at our major dailies’ facebook pages to see the reactions they get when they ask readers for help). Meanwhile the EPL will come across as the rich but inefficient plutocrat it has become in recent decades.
It’s something I don’t understand about professional sports in the UK and here (American pro sports seem to do it OK). You can click through four pages at the New Zealand Herald to get to a live scoring feed which isn’t really live scoring, and has rudimentary stats.
Professional sports should be doing their own thing – having stats, running commentary, maybe an audio feed (TV rights would preclude a live TV feed) – on a site that attracts advertising and other marketing options. Lots of people often can’t get to a TV to watch a game, but more importantly, it would allow the club or franchise to control the content and develop a stronger fan relationship.
God knows our professional sports employ enough people to do this sort of thing. Even more interesting is using the fan interaction to get more insight (sure, most of it will be crap, but there are some passionate ones out there who think they know more than your average sports journo). I’m amazed as to why no-one has taken it up.
English football and our professional sports don’t realize everyone with a smartphone is a journalist these days. Once the papers realize it too, the petulance shown by football last week will be treated with extreme prejudice in the future.
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