In the mind’s eye of the NCAA, there exist crazed college hoops fans who ignore the high-definition broadcasts of the March tournament.

Yet, these fans are not missing the live action. They are closely following it on their personal computer, reading the live blog of a beat reporter on a newspaper Web site.

Sound absurd? So is the current NCAA media policy regarding live blogging – the practice of updating a blog during an event providing up-to-the-minute insight and commentary – that has caused tension all month.

The issue began last June when a reporter from the Louisville Courier-Journal was ejected from an NCAA super-regional baseball game for live blogging. The NCAA had issued a memo that banned blog updates from the first pitch to the last out.

The Courier-Journal’s lawyer protested the NCAA’s action. And the media had a new battle to fight against the establishment.

Then in December, the NCAA released its new policy on live blogging, presumably so reporters could be aware of what actions would get them booted from the ballpark.

The new guidelines limited the number of live posts a credentialed reporter could issue from a championship event (including the hyper-covered basketball tournaments). For example, during a basketball game, a reporter can only update his or her blog five times per half, once during halftime and twice per overtime period.

Reporters generally agree it is unlikely they would want to post more often than the limit set by the NCAA. Though it may be irritating in principle, in practicality, it is a non-issue beyond the association attempting to exert unprecedented editorial control.

Yet, the issue that actually set off reporters and editors around the country was the requirement that all live blogs include a link to the NCAA’s Web site while displaying the association’s logo. This condition was seen as little more than a sly maneuver by the NCAA to receive free advertising on the blogs.

It forced bloggers covering teams in the tournament to either reinvent their live blogging formula or comply with the NCAA’s free advertising gambit.

Pete Iorizzo covers the Siena men’s basketball team for The Albany Times-Union. He said while the post limits (five per half) were reasonable – though irritating in principle – it was the logo requisite that crossed the line.

‘If they wanted the logo up, they could buy an ad,’ Iorizzo said. The problem ‘was more about the logo and not compensating for it in any way, and the blog is property of The Times-Union.’

Iorizzo wrote his blog in real time, but only posted it once the game was done.

The NCAA misunderstood the role of the new technology and wrongly perceived it as a threat. Blogs are a [ITALICS]supplement[/ITALICS] to a fan’s consumption of the game action, and by involving itself in the production of independent blogs, the NCAA only created an enemy for itself: the very reporters that cover its championship events.

It is disappointing the NCAA took this stance with new media and especially, as in Iorizzo’s case, when the blog serves as an integral outlet for disseminating additional information and nuanced commentary on a team. Iorizzo said he believes devout fans benefit from his blog as he can include more information and anecdotes than there is room for in his print stories.

The sort of devout fans who read sports blogs are not bypassing telecasts to read brief insights posted during games. The policy highlights the impulsive judgment being made by NCAA media officials, who did not return requests for comment.

Because the policy only applies to credentialed reporters at championship events, its effects are generally limited, but if bloggers are looking for a way to skirt the regulation they could follow the approach taken by The Los Angeles Times’ UCLA blogger.

Richard Perelman’s byline does not appear in The Times’ print edition because the paper has the luxury of retaining him solely to blog about the Bruins.

But Perelman refused the paper’s offer to travel with the Final Four-bound UCLA men’s basketball team throughout the NCAA Tournament. He made the decision because he thinks the best place to blog from is his library – not to avoid the live blogging policy.

Perelman described an ‘information super center’ he creates for himself in his library with the game on television muted so he can listen to the local radio broadcast while he follows the latest statistics on one computer and live blogs on another.

‘I don’t see any advantage to being in the arena,’ he said. ‘How could I do much better? I’m in a much better position to comment on what’s going on sitting in my library.’

And while Perelman agrees that the NCAA policy is ‘silly,’ he blogs outside of its jurisdiction. Though, his design may shed some light on the next evolution in live sports blogging.

With or without NCAA regulations, live blogging is now a fixture for sports writers across the country. Newspapers have only recently fully embraced the potential (and limitless writing space) of the Internet and with a concentrated effort on exploiting the resources of the Web, only more developments will be seen.

But unfortunately, the NCAA has not taken a forward-thinking attitude concerning new media coverage. It offered an archaic, unfounded, unnecessary and interventionist policy to combat what is really a phantom fear.

It is shocking that the businesspeople who run the NCAA actually fear their product will be devalued if there is no regulation over live blogging.

‘I’m not sure what it is they are afraid of,’ Iorizzo said.

The answer is they are afraid of what they don’t understand.

Matt Reilly is the sports and the media columnist for The Daily Orange. He can be reached at msreilly@syr.edu.

Published on March 31, 2008 at 12:00 pm