UW Imposes 20-Tweet Limit On Live Events

theodp writes "GeekWire's Taylor Soper reports that the University of Washington has capped live sports coverage at 20 Tweets per basketball game (45 for football) and threatens to revoke the credentials of journalists who dare exceed the Twitter limits. Tacoma News Tribune reporter Todd Dybas was reportedly 'reprimanded' after drawing the ire of the UW Athletic Dept. for apparently Tweeting too much during UW's 85-63 Sunday win over Loyola."

Comments

Fair enough I suppose

[skovnymfe]

I'm assuming it's not their job to write tweets and drive traffic toward their personal twitter feed, but to write stories that the employer can sell. No?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Arancaytar]

That's between them and their employer, not the organizer of the event they're covering, isn't it?

Can you imagine being asked to cover an event, but only allowed to write 6300 characters about it?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[wonkey_monkey]

But in this case it's not their employer imposing the restriction. It's the University, who don't want people "tuning" into Twitter for a play-by-play - they want them tuning in to the local radio or TV stations that have paid handsomely for the broadcast privileges.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[gagol]

It's the private school that restricts it, not the reporter boss. From the article:

“I think just generally speaking is what we’re trying to do is steer people toward partnerships we have with radio, television and our own web presence,” Moore said. “We don’t want people taken way from that experience.”

In plain english: "We have deals with radios and the twitter feeds do not generate revenues, so we decided it was better for us if you cannot follow the games in detail with twitter even if you prefer that over radio."

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we upvote this so that everyone who go "that is so stupid, what kind of rationale could there possibly be?" can find their answer straight away?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I just adore the way that the school's PR weasel manages to word it as though those cruel journalists are tearing innocent readers 'away from that experience', rather than admit the obvious "apparently following the game on twitter is more engaging than watching or listening to it, at least as broadcast by our paying partners"...

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Lumpy]

they cant stop spectators.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[bickerdyke]

Can you imagine a newspaper reporter NOT beeing given a target word-count for his articles?

Unlike space on a webpage, space in a newspaper is limited. If the editor reserves a certain amount of space for event x, the reporter is sent there with the task to write a 100 (1000, 5000...) words article about that event. No more, no less. (give or take a few additional words for lower average word lengths)

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

Private school? My taxpayer dollars go to fund that particular institution of higher learning via sales tax and property taxes. It is most certainly not a private institution.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Attila Dimedici]

Actually, it is a state school which is restricting them. I am curious as to whether this would stand up to a first amendment challenge. Since this involves "credentialed" journalists, who presumably receive free access to the games rather than having to purchase tickets, it certainly might withstand such a challenge.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[pla]

It's the University, who don't want people "tuning" into Twitter for a play-by-play - they want them tuning in to the local radio or TV stations that have paid handsomely for the broadcast privileges.

UW's failure to grasp the realities of the modern world doesn't make a bit of difference.

Although they could revoke the "credentials" of a traditional-media reporter (ironically, the one group they do need to appease for the advertising revenue), how do they plan to stop a "random fan" from tweeting as much as he wants? 20 tweets? That doesn't even come out to one-per-scored-point in most sports. I've seen people send twice that (well, I've only "seen" them text, can't say for sure if they tweeted it) just in the top of the first inning!

Let UW have its little pissing contes - They'll lose, of course, but it might provide some entertainment to watch (cue them learning about the "Streisand" effect at their next game in 3... 2...1...).

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[homsar]

Can you imagine a reporter having their word limit set by the organisation they're covering rather than their own publication? And being asked to write the article as the event occurs, in real time?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[alen]

most spectators don't have the follower count of the reporters

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

What First Amendment challenge? Since when does the First Amendment oblige the school to give the reporter credentials? Methinks you have no clue what the fuck you're talking about. You do realize that getting credentials is a privilege and not a right, correct?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[fl!ptop]

Can you imagine..

Can you imagine writing an article as a series of tweets?

Sounds very unprofessional.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Captain.Abrecan]

They will soon, once they are the only source of free play-by-play coverage.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

That's only because reporters are a reliable way to get the information. Once reporters are capped, that all changes and people will have to find their information from somewhere else. All it would take is a few students to set up a "UW sports tweets" account. There will be a demand for unofficial reporting when official reporting is censored.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, reread the GP post, they agree with you.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[joshuao3]

"Random fan" probably doesn't have nearly as many followers as the media tweeter. So, no problem.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

I did read their post. Maybe you need to re-read it?

Since this involves "credentialed" journalists, who presumably receive free access to the games rather than having to purchase tickets, it certainly might withstand such a challenge.

This would not withstand a First Amendment challenge because there are no First Amendment grounds. Tons of organizations put restrictions and conditions when they issue credentials. Schools do it all the time as well. This is not restricting free speech or freedom of the press as the school has no obligation to give out credentials to everyone.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if they're writing about you yelling at them to get off your lawn.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[MisterSquid]

Can you imagine writing an article as a series of tweets?

Sounds very unprofessional.

A few months back (August 2012), Cassian Elwes (an independent film producer) posted a series of tweets about his interaction with a distraught veteran on a flight from New York to Los Angeles. (Sorry for the Buzzfeed link, it came from MetaFilter, I swear!)

While it's not Pulitzer-level journalism, the story does emerge reasonably well from Elwes's tweets.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

he says its curious if it would stand up to a first amendment challenge AND THEN SAYS HE THINKS ITS POSSIBLE BECAUSE OF THEM BEING CREDENTIALED! seriously, if someone points out your mistake, take the time to double check before trying to call them out. "it certainly might withstand such a challenge" means that they're rule WOULD WITHSTAND SUCH A CHALLENGE. How are you interpreting that to mean the opposite?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha. You don't know the meaning of withstand. Allow me to fix the first sentence of your second paragraph for you:

This would withstand a First Amendment challenge because there are no First Amendment grounds.

The way you wrote that sentence does not make any sense.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Jason Levine]

Actually, @Todd_Dybas has a follower count of 436. This isn't a lot. I have over 1,000 followers and regularly talk to people on Twitter whose follower count vastly exceeds my own. Were Todd Dybas and I to attend a game and both live tweet it, would he be kicked out since he's a journalist but I'd be allowed because I'm just a spectator? Or would I be kicked out too for daring to tweet more than 20 times during the game?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[JaredOfEuropa]

The number of followers is much less relevant at live events (including sports events). Some followers might be drawn in that way, but many will simply tune in to the hashtag.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[bws111]

They understand the 'modern world' perfectly well. They also understand things like 'exclusive contracts' and 'source of income'.

What the 'modern world' needs to learn is that just because you have the ability to do something doesn't mean it is right to do that thing, or that doing that thing has no long-term negative effects. Yes, some idiot can tweet the entire play-by-play. But what do you think will happen to UW's basketball program when it no longer is a source of revenue (or loses even more money than it does now, if that is the case)?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[aicrules]

Reporter or whoever is talking to me and pauses to tweet "real time" thoughts and the interview/conversation ends right there. I hate it when one person is having a conversation with another person and either of them think it's okay to "check their phone" let alone actually read or type something on it. It's rude. However, what Cassian Elwes did was misuse twitter. It wasn't real time. Putting all the tweets together the story is very poorly written. It's feigned real-time stream of consciousness and I'm sure he thought it added some dramatic effect. In reality, it was just Cassian Elwes not knowing the proper medium to tell a story.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[halcyon1234]

Can you imagine no possessions?

That would make for a very boring football game.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually it goes away, and maybe at that point UW will go back to focusing on academics.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Nanosapien]

They understand the 'modern world' perfectly well. They also understand things like 'exclusive contracts' and 'source of income'.

What the 'modern world' needs to learn is that just because you have the ability to do something doesn't mean it is right to do that thing, or that doing that thing has no long-term negative effects. Yes, some idiot can tweet the entire play-by-play. But what do you think will happen to UW's basketball program when it no longer is a source of revenue (or loses even more money than it does now, if that is the case)?

Maybe if their basketball and other sports programs are no longer a source of revenue, the university will go back to focusing on education.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

he says its curious if it would stand up to a first amendment challenge AND THEN SAYS HE THINKS ITS POSSIBLE BECAUSE OF THEM BEING CREDENTIALED! seriously, if someone points out your mistake, take the time to double check before trying to call them out. "it certainly might withstand such a challenge" means that they're rule WOULD WITHSTAND SUCH A CHALLENGE. How are you interpreting that to mean the opposite?

their.
When being pedantic........
meh

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[jittles]

I can't imagine why anyone would want to partake of a game through twitter. I suppose if you're a die hard fan and you are in the car, can't get it on the radio, and go to twitter to see play by plays. But in those cases I usually go to ESPN and watch their real time game tracker. Its not all that exciting, but you can see what's going on. I guess I just get the Twitheads.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[sed quid in infernos]

What First Amendment challenge? Since when does the First Amendment oblige the school to give the reporter credentials? Methinks you have no clue what the fuck you're talking about. You do realize that getting credentials is a privilege and not a right, correct?

If that "privilege" is conditioned (by a state institution like a public university) on the content of the coverage, it would absolutely be a First Amendment violation. if the reporter could prove that the reason for denial of press credentials is the content of his reporting, he would win if he brought suit. It's not even a close question on the law; it's proving the necessary facts that might cause problems for such a plaintiff.

In this case, it's a closer question of law. On its face, the restriction is content neutral, and would probably be judged as a time-place-manner speech restriction. Those can be upheld, but they're typically upheld when the speech itself impinges on an important state interest. For example, amplified sound in the park interferes with the state's purpose of allowing citizens quiet enjoyment of the park. As long as the ban on amplified sound is content neutral, both on its face and in the manner in which it is enforced, such a restriction would probably be upheld. In this case, I think it would come down to whether the court judges the revenue from contracted media to be an important enough state interest to warrant such protection.

It's also possible that the court could view this as non-content-neutral, assuming it doesn't apply to tweets about things other than the ongoing event. Such a restriction would receive strict scrutiny, and likely be struck down because the state is conditioning privileges on a requirement that a reporter not engage in protected speech (which a tweet during a basketball game is).

I think the time-place-manner analysis is more likely, but I'd have to do some case research to be sure.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[PopeRatzo]

But in this case it's not their employer imposing the restriction. It's the University, who don't want people "tuning" into Twitter for a play-by-play - they want them tuning in to the local radio or TV stations that have paid handsomely for the broadcast privileges.

Who cares what the University wants or what TV and radio stations have "paid handsomely" for?

I paid handsomely for my bright pink Hummer H3, but that does not give me the right to demand that my neighbors stop calling me a goof for having bought it or tweeting about my horrible driving.

This relatively new belief that descriptions of a public event are in some way proprietary should be alarming to all of us. Can we bear in mind that the University in question is a public institution?

How far should control over descriptions go? Should people be prevented from describing the shitty meal they got at Olive Garden last night? Or maybe a political candidate should be able to prevent journalists from describing the debate where he was high on booze and pills based upon his proprietary ownership of the content of his own words?

We're going way in the wrong direction treating ideas, words, descriptions - basic building blocks of information - as property. It makes me want to just say that all "intellectual property" is unacceptable.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[93 Escort Wagon]

Can you imagine writing an article as a series of tweets?

It's called "live tweeting", and it's quite common - and really annoying (in my opinion).

Twitter is now THE place to get breaking sports news. Unfortunately a number of the sports journalists I follow also seem to think their followers want them to tweet the live play-by-play for games.

It's possible some people like it, but I've never heard anyone mention live tweeting unless they're complaining.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[pla]

What the 'modern world' needs to learn is that just because you have the ability to do something doesn't mean it is right to do that thing, or that doing that thing has no long-term negative effects.

Heh... How cute. No one "needs" your product. Learn how to sell in the modern market, or vanish into obsolescence.

"Waaaah, no one will pay me for my buggy whips anymore!"


But what do you think will happen to UW's basketball program when it no longer is a source of revenue (or loses even more money than it does now, if that is the case)?

Well, ideally, the University of Washington would stop pouring tuition into stadiums and scholarships for athletic idiots, and focus on such mundane things as academics. But y'know, call me crazy to hope getting a degree would involve getting an education (yes, I count as one of "them" - I see no benefit to linking your sweaty homoerotic gladiatorial games with our institutions of learning).

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That's what makes the whole thing sort of pathetic.

It'd be unpleasant(especially for a state school that probably has a lot of taxpayers in the stands at a given game); but perfectly logical if they had some sort of "Due to the increasing non-suckiness of consumer video gear, our lucrative broadcasting deal partners want you over there with the video camera to GTFO".

Tweets, though? Are your partners really so awful at churning out material that people want, in the formats they want it, that a bunch of teeny text snippets are serious competition? And are they specifically so awful that 20 or fewer text snippets they can handle; but 30 totally ruins their business model, man? Sounds like somebody needs some new 'content partners'...

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[93 Escort Wagon]

UW's failure to grasp the realities of the modern world doesn't make a bit of difference.

Failing to grasp the realities of the modern world is frequently an issue at the University of Washington (my employer). It's not too surprising when this sort of thing comes from faculty, since their connection to the real world is tenuous at best - but I am sometimes left jaw-droppingly aghast at how out of touch some highly-paid staff can be.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Hatta]

I read the rationale, it's still stupid. If you're putting on a show, and the value of that show is compromised by Twitter, there's not much value in that show to begin with. Are people going to avoid seeing Bob Dylan in concert because the music reporter tweets the setlist? Are people going to avoid a production of Shakespeare because the theatre critic tweets "Macduff kills MacBeth"? No, the value of these events is in the performance, an experience that can't be communicated through Twitter.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Frontier Owner]

have you read a read a newspaper article lately? most are starting to sound like a series of tweets run together, put in a 1.25 inch column, and justified in TNR font.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Enry]

Are you seriously saying that a UW fan would rather follow a twitter feed over watching the game live (either in person or on TV) or even hearing a play-by-play on the radio?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Minwee]

If you're putting on a show, and the value of that show is compromised by Twitter, there's not much value in that show to begin with.

Careful, this is College Football you're talking about. In several states it's legal to shoot you for disparaging it.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[chinton]

Yes... A sampling of 4 news stories about the game in question came out to between 4000 and 5000 characters...

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Hatta]

It's not me who is disparaging college football, it's those who claim that college football is so devoid of substance that it can be enjoyed satisfactorily over twitter.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[afidel]

He'd have his press privileges revoked which would mean no backstage access, no access to the players outside what a fan would have, etc. He would still be free to purchase a ticket and live tweet the event but he would lose the access that the university has offered him as a member of the press. It's their facilities and they are free to do so, but is that what the fans who ultimately drive the revenue for the universities athletic department want?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Randle_Revar]

That is what hashtags are for.

Not that I care, Twitter is stupid and so are collage and pro sports.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine writing an article as a series of tweets?
Sounds very unprofessional.

For sufficiently archaic and limited definitions of "professional", sure.

It's just a new medium. Good journalists will use it well. Bad journalists will use it poorly. You'll be yelling at them both from the nursing home window.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Jumperalex]

To be blunt, I don't give a shit. UW's Basketball program is not entiteled to revenue. It is entitled to use old world revenue streams. And it is not entitled to protection of those revenue streams through threats of force (read: the courts). They are 100% entitled to revoke media cred, that is their right and their choice. However, when the "modern world" routes around their choice in a legal and moral (yes moral) manner, they do not have the right to prevent it. Well yes in some ways they do, they can ban cell phones from the stadium, employ jammers (where legal), add a EULA to all tickets saying you agree to not tweet and then agressively enforce it via force (again, read: the courts) etc. But they will also have to live with the consequences of said actions from further circumvention all the way to loss of ticket sales.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Jumperalex]

miss-edit: ... is NOT entitled to old world revenue

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

Most colleges have contracts with local TV and radio stations (sometimes national, like Notre Dame). These contracts charge a premium amount for the right to "Live" coverage. Sports Journalists are not given the right to real-time reporting, they have to purchase it. Why? Because the current legal understanding is that college sporting events are not public events, even for public universities.

The Credential Policy for UW specifically mentions that real-time reporting is not permitted.

Credential Holders (including television, Internet, new media, and print publications) are not permitted to promote or produce in any form a “real-time” description of the event.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[wonkey_monkey]

Who cares what the University wants or what TV and radio stations have "paid handsomely" for?

Off the top of my head, the University, and the TV and radio stations.

I paid handsomely for my bright pink Hummer H3, but that does not give me the right to demand that my neighbors stop calling me a goof for having bought it or tweeting about my horrible driving.

But your neighbours haven't entered in an agreement with you to give them access to your property in order to watch you driving your car.

This relatively new belief that descriptions of a public event...

The public can attend if they pay. I agree with your point about universities being public institutions - and let's not get into the whole ridiculous college football, situation - but it's not like they wouldn't frown on you for wandering in and attending lectures on your days off from work just because you've paid your taxes.

Should people be prevented from describing the shitty meal they got at Olive Garden last night?

Yes, if both parties have previously agreed to the restrictions. I'd take that deal for 50% off, if for some reason they decided to offer it.

Or maybe a political candidate should be able to prevent journalists from describing the debate where he was high on booze and pills based upon his proprietary ownership of the content of his own words?

Again, if he's managed to get them to agree to such a deal beforehand, why not? They'd be idiots for doing so, of course.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

Ostensibly the athletics department is funded by donors, sponsors and football revenue. I've never quite fully believed that...

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[morgauxo]

articles are summaries written after the fact, when you know what the highlights were. twitter is real-time

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

Go way back, remember how the major pro US sports leagues shut down proto-Twitter pager feeds to websites? Those were fed by people paging in play-by-play. I do recall the leagues were successful in arguing said services were violating the leagues' copyrights.
Somehow the UW may have grounds in this area as well.
You or I may have 1000 followers, and the reporter may only have 50, yet the reporter's feed could just then be streamed to his employer's website, which likely has a much bigger footprint (Google News...) than your feed.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire away. If it's not pro, it's not good enough. Hell, sometimes the pros are so bad they aren't worth watching. Keep practicing and someday it'll be worth my money. Maybe.

Nobody ever said life was fair or easy.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Dahamma]

It's easy in four downs if you try.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Dahamma]

Yes, University of Washington, as well as other teams in their conference like Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC, etc, have no focus on education and somehow an athletic program has totally ruined their teaching and research programs.

Oh, or maybe those latter 4 are in the top 25 in national Academic rankings (and UW in the top 50) while still managing to have fun (and profitable, yes - how is that a bad thing again?) athletic programs.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Dahamma]

Well, ideally, the University of Washington would stop pouring tuition into stadiums and scholarships for athletic idiots, and focus on such mundane things as academics.

Except those athletic programs actually MAKE money for many universities. Not to mention athletics are not just football, there are dozens of college sports, some of which are paid for by the bigger ones. And many of those sports are as old or older than the concept of the university itself (and an integral part since the start). The ancient Greeks, Romans, British, Germans, etc who created many of the modern concepts of organized higher education have always considered athletics a part of development of young people. Maybe if we'd go back to those basics a bit more we'd have fewer obese people sitting around staring at their computer screen or TV all day. I mean seriously, since when did sweating become a bad thing!?

Personally I take satisfaction knowing that my alma mater is usually ranked in the top 5 for academics while having won the award for best college athletics program for the last 18 years in a row. I have a lot of friends who were athletes and are now engineers, doctors, executives, lawyers, even a few PhDs.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you hate America?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

But they can deny future entry into the building or stands. They have the right to allow or disallow visitors onto their land.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[DavidTC]

Who the hell cares if it's a 'public event' or not? Is there some magical law making it illegal to report what someone is seeing at a _private_ event?

Once again, we have the blow-job giving media scared to death of the people they are actually supposed to be reporting on. At least here it's about pointless sports instead of politics, but it's still completely idiotic.

Here is something that everyone in the goddamn universe needs drilled into their head: YOU DO NOT GET TO DECIDE HOW THE MEDIA REPORTS ON YOU.

The media, en mass, needs to stand up and say 'You can try to set whatever fucking rules you want. We will continue to do whatever we want. You want to revoke our experiential, go ahead, we'll buy tickets. You want to bar us from the stadium, go ahead, we'll send secret observers to rely information to us.'

Not this idiotic nonsense where reporters apparently have to do whatever the university says.

It's especially fucking surreal in this situation, where sports writers are usually some of sports _biggest promoters_. Hell, newspapers could simply say 'If you will not let our reporters do whatever they want, we will REFUSE TO REPORT ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR FOOTBALL PROGRAM.'

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[DavidTC]

Indeed. The government does not have the right to revoke credentials based the content of someone's speech, even if those are _ privileges_, not rights.

I mean, think how it would work otherwise. 'You write things critical of the government, so we're not going to let you have a driver's license.'

And I don't see how that logic wouldn't extend to other things. 'You're a member of this religion, so you can't visit this national park.' 'You're black, so you can't use this water fountain that the government has provided...water fountains are just a privilege the government provides, not a right.'.

Some people are just really stupid, and think the government can just take things away just because they're 'privileges'. In the actual _real world_, the government isn't allowed to do _anything_ to people for exercising their constitutional rights, regardless of whether the government is 'punishing' people or 'just taking away a privilege' that the government didn't have to provide. Once the government decided to provide something, it has to do it equally, within the rules it has laid out...and the first amendment explicitly forbids from making rules WRT speech.

That said, an argument can, in theory, be made this is _not_ a content-based restriction.

OTOH, 'content' isn't the only only thing here...the government has held that restricting _timing_ of speech can be disallowed in certain circumstance. (And it can be allowed in others. It's confusing.)

But there's is enough confusion that it's entirely possible that someone essentially _giving their article out early_, piecemeal, via twitter, instead of waiting and publishing an article after the game, is not an allowable reason to revoke credentials.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[DavidTC]

No, the pro sports leagues were _not_ successful in arguing that. They were successful in _threatening lawsuits_ and forcing the sites to shut down.

It's been pretty clearly determined that, under the law, individual facts are not copyright-able. The fact that a specific team scored a touchdown is an individual fact. In fact, it's not even _that_. Those cases are about people taking _written_ facts and replicating them, which could, _in theory_, have copyright, except they are too small and not creative enough.

But events _themselves_ are not copyrighted. Copyrights only apply to thing in fixed mediums. If I am sitting in person and watching a football game, that game is not copyrighted.(1) In fact, it is entirely legal for me to record it and I would own the copyright on that recording. Yes, really. (Go ask wedding photographers if you don't believe me.)

What teams have attempted to do, somewhat successfully with personal video recording, and less successfully with twitter, is to assert _contract law_ over ticket holders. They claim the ticket is a contractual agreement that specifically bars filming, and thus they were damaged by break of contract. This was always stupid logic because, uh, not everyone who attends the game 'purchased' the ticket, and having one person hand you a ticket with a bunch of legalese on it, and then handing that to someone else, does not bind you to a contract! (Suddenly we're being governed by Harry Potter logic for some reason, where you can agree to a binding contract not to film the Quidditch World Cup by accidentally handing Dobby a sock!)

But they mostly got away with that with tickets, helped by the fact they could just throw people out for filming anyway. Events can always throw people out for breaking posted rules, without any 'contracts' or 'copyright law' or anything. _Suing_ was always dodgy, but whatever.

But this is nonsensical with twitter. The problem is that either a) Ticket holders are legally under a gag order and can't talk about the game at all, which even our incredibly pro-business courts are not willing to go with, or b) They can indeed tell other people what's going on, at which point...there are no damages anyway, because those _other_ people aren't bound by any contract at all.

So the pro sports leagues have been forced to not even try. Yes, they were able to go after some people in the early days of the internet by bluffing about their court case being better than it was, but it's not something that they'd actually win.

You'll notice that what we're talking about here is them _revoking credentials_ to a reporter, not suing them.

1) Oddly enough, as pre-created football plays are written down, there might be the really surreal argument that a football game is the 'public performance' of those plays, just like a play is a public performance of a _script_. And hence it's copyrighted. I don't recall any NFL team ever trying to argue this, especially as it would create the uncomfortable universe where NFL games are copyrighted by _coaches_ and the NFL does not appear to have any specific permission to record and broadcast them.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[mythosaz]

He's welcome to tweet all he wants... ...and he'll have his media credentials revoked, and he can buy a ticket.

If he wants to sit in press row, he'll have follow the rules that say the guy who PAID to broadcast the event live gets to do the play-by-play, and not have it undermined by your twitter feed.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[mythosaz]

The reporter is free to report all he wants and tweet all he wants. The college makes no attempt to stop that. ...but if you want to sit in the press box, you have to cede LIVE reporting of the events to the media organization that paid for the broadcast rights.

They're even willing to let you tweet live every couple of minutes - just not as a play-by-play.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Mike Buddha]

Interesting. I wonder if there'd be enough interest to have someone pay for the priviledge of live-twittering a game?

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Firehed]

Tech rumor sites seem to handle this fairly well by simply having a second twitter handle from which they do the live-tweeting of event coverage. If you only want normal news, just follow the main feed; if you want a deluge of pithy comments, follow both. Opt-in spam.

Sounds like the sportscaster crew could learn a thing or two about this "internet".

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[PopeRatzo]

But your neighbours haven't entered in an agreement with you to give them access to your property

Is the "your property" in this case the University stadium that was built by the taxpayers?

and let's not get into the whole ridiculous college football, situation

Why the hell not?

but it's not like they wouldn't frown on you for wandering in and attending lectures on your days off from work just because you've paid your taxes.

Actually, I can say from first-hand knowledge that you are wrong. As long as you're polite and not trying to scream at the economics professor for being a lefty, you can get permission to sit in on a class at most public universities.

Should people be prevented from describing the shitty meal they got at Olive Garden last night?

Yes, if both parties have previously agreed to the restrictions. I'd take that deal for 50% off, if for some reason they decided to offer it.

Did the reporters agree in advance to be limited to 20 tweets? I missed that in the article.

Again, if he's managed to get them to agree to such a deal beforehand, why not?

Here's why: because stuff that happens in public that the public is interested in is news. General Patraeus can't sue CNN for using his image without permission when there is a story in which the public is interested in which he is involved.

See, now you've convinced me: "intellectual property" is a huge fraud and not at all helpful in the aggregate to society. I warned you this would happen if you tried to push this ridiculous issue.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Nanosapien]

Exaggerate much? I never said that they have -no- focus on their education, only that maybe resources that are usually spent on non-academic programs could go to fund the actual academic programs. An example is the University of Florida where the computer science department is being reduced, but the football program's funding is increased. Having sports programs competing with academic programs in academic institutions for funding screws up a university's priorities. Compare the funding of the sports programs versus department funding. Or how many research programs or slots they're able to fund. Sports programs may be profitable, but is that really how we want to run our academic institutions? Like a business? I liked the way that schools in Germany had separated their academic programs from their athletic programs. That way the schools never confused their priorities in giving people top quality education. Just something to think about instead of trying to be sarcastic and narrowly-focused.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[Dahamma]

The statements in your own post makes no sense. If the sports program is profitable, by definition they are not cutting other programs to support it.

And honestly what good does a single anecdote like Florida have to do with educational focus? I'm happy to give a counter example, my alma mater had two Nobel prize winners this year and yet somehow has managed to win the award for best college athletic program for the last 18 years in a row. Not to mention the #1 ranked Computer Science program in the US (which I'm going to be arrogant and call #1 the world). How's that for narrow focus?

Just because a specific implementation sucks, doesn't mean it's a bad idea. In fact, a good counterexample that works proves it's possible...

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[wonkey_monkey]

you can get permission to sit in on a class at most public universities.

"Get permission" is not the same thing as "wander in off the street." Also they get even funnier about it when you try to apply the same logic to high schools, for some reason.

Did the reporters agree in advance to be limited to 20 tweets? I missed that in the article.

I think it's safe to assume that they have indeed agreed to university's live coverage policy.

because stuff that happens in public

I'm not convinced that a football game is a public event. It's an event which the public may attend on payment.

General Patraeus can't sue CNN for using his image without permission

How is that the same? For one thing, no-one's talking about legal action. This'd be more like... General Patraeus organising a football game and levying a condition on journalists that they can only tweet 20 times, and if they don't they can't come to the next game.

I warned you this would happen if you tried to push this ridiculous issue.

One party wants to impose a restriction on the second party, who can take it or leave it. Happens a billion times a day.

Re:Fair enough I suppose

[DavidTC]

I think you misunderstood my post if you think I have an issue with what you said.

Journalists should pay to get seats. All of them. Every single fucking one. (Please note the person getting paid to do play-by-play is not a journalist in any sense.)

Following the rules of people you are reporting on, in return for them providing you with perks, is not 'journalism'.

Actual journalists do not follow people around like puppy dogs, promising they'll be good if they just be graced with an interview or 'access' or whatever. They say 'I am writing a story about this thing. You can either give me what _you_ want out there, and hope I include it in the story, or you can choose _not_ to try to give me anything, in which case I will simply continue without your input.'

Now, I don't actually _care_ what they do in sports, because sports are not actually important. But this entire thing has infest journalism from top to bottom.

Points

[Lord Lode]

In basketball, usually more points get made than goals get made in football so shouldn't the tweet limit be higher for basketball?

Re:Points

[chrismcb]

A typical basketball game lasts about 2 hours, while a typical football game is generally just over 3 hours. I'm guessing that is why the different tweet limits

Re:Points

[Anonymous Coward]

A football game is 90 minutes, 45 minutes each half.

Re:Points

[Anonymous Coward]

Bless you!

Re:Points

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken by a true geek, who has never been forced to watch a game start to finish!

Re:Points

[slim]

Yeah, he's failed to account for the 15 minute half time break, and typically 5 minutes of stoppage time.

Then if it's a cup game, there might be extra time, and maybe penalties!

Re:Points

[Ecuador]

It might surprise you, but there are these Americans who insist on calling "football" a game where you actually use just your hands to throw/catch/carry and only very rarely you get to kick the ball (up to a handful of times per game). People outside the US in the end gave into the madness and are also referring to this game as "American football" instead of using a more fitting name such as "Pansy Rugby" or "Handegg" (http://www.eatliver.com/i.php?n=3849). They just try to not refer to it much.
Anyway, the aforementioned game indeed lasts a bit over 3 hours on average (at least the NFL version). Curiously (for people who are only familiar with the more appropriately named football), the "dead time"/"actual play" ratio of American football is not at all better than Basketball, as those 3 hours involve just 60 minutes of actual play. So it is about 50% more actual play than a college Basketball 40-minute game and about the same 50% extra of actual time (3 hours vs 20hours) but it gets more than 2x the tweets allowance even though the plays and the scoring are several times less...
In conclusion, we can't start doing logical analyses for random caps taken out of someones' posterior ;)

Re:Points

[0100010001010011]

Actually. American Football games have just 11 minutes of action

Re:Points

[Lunix Nutcase]

*facepalm*

Re:Points

[Anonymous Coward]

People outside the US in the end gave into the madness and are also referring to this game as "American football" instead of using a more fitting name such as "Pansy Rugby"

We refer to euro football by the more fitting "flopball" or "diveball" where any time you are stripped of the ball, you flop on the ground hoping to pick up a yellow card.

Re:Points

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Yeah, he's failed to account for the 15 minute half time break, and typically 5 minutes of stoppage time.

But he didn't fail to remind you that a 90 minute period has halves exactly 45 minutes in length! That's geeky enough, isn't it?

Re:Points

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoooosh to all of you. I mean really, are any of you paying attention?

A football game is 90 minutes, 45 minutes each half.

They are referring to what the rest of the world calls 'Football' (what we in America call 'Soccer'). They were making a joke, thus the Funny moderation.

Re:Points

[Elbart]

Would be a valid argument if the NFL and, especially, the NBA were flop-free.

Re:Points

[dywolf]

90 minutes that takes 4 hours to play and televise.

Re:Points

[Anonymous Coward]

There is the difference in amount of time invested in each game as another poster pointed out. But there's also the difference of how important each point scored is. Since basketball is a much higher-scoring game than football, each point isn't as important. With football, it's more necessary for a full narrative of the game to tweet each touchdown or field goal. Whereas with basketball, each basket isn't as important, and if you tweeted each one that would easily be 150+ tweets per game. With basketball it makes more sense to tweet when the lead changes, which would require fewer tweets.

None of this is to say I think this is a good idea. I think it's ridiculous. I just wanted to point out why they would give different limits.

Re:Points

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that kind of football game is a random length of time over 90 minutes.

Stoppage time is probably the most idiotic concept in all of sports. Stop the fucking clock when there's a stoppage, the mystery end of game is just pants-shittingly stupid.

Re:Points

[Ecuador]

Duh, I was replying to the joke with another joke as an introduction and then went on to say something a little more serious (as much as American football can let me). It's not my fault my humor is not your humor...

Re:Points

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Thanks, but I happen to live in the "rest of the world" and played it at school (with disastrous results, but still...). And we get taught mathematics there, which is why I wrote what I wrote.

Re:Points

[fatphil]

Intresting. I know that american football teams have huge numbers of players with different specialities, so most are not on the patch at any one time. So what's the average amount of action that each *player* participates in, per game?

Re:Points

[LMariachi]

Time spent playing does not correlate to how often something tweetworthy happens. In American football, every series of downs ends with either a first down, a turnover, or a score. The average soccer game has about three goals and maybe a red card or an injury.

Re:Points

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, the comparison was between American Football and Basketball.

Re:Points

[Anonymous Coward]

If there is no stopage time, how else is a ref supposed to allow enough extra time for Man U to get in the box, flop, and draw a pk?

Re:Points

[0100010001010011]

Say offense defense is evenly split. So 5.5 min each.

Now people that are on the line (essentially the pack in the scrum, hope you know Rugby as I'll do it from that perspective), they're ALWAYS active, maybe not the last few seconds of a play. So lets say they do 4.5 minutes of work a game.

Quarter back is probably also about that involved. So lets say 4.5 minutes for him too. Now all the other positions. About the same as in Rugby. How often does a wing get the ball? So I'd say the running backs, and receivers may actually 'do work' for 4-5 minutes. But most of that work is 'uncontested'. So they're just sprinting down the field as fast as they can. So in 10 second increments.

And then there is the kicker. He may probably spend a total of 30 seconds doing something for a whole game.

And for this they get a few million a year.

Re:Points

[LMariachi]

You wouldn't tweet individual baskets, that would be silly. Aside from the final moments of a close game, nothing much noteworthy happens in a basketball game except in aggregate, e.g. one team going on a 16-0 scoring run, or a player making a triple-double. (This is one of the main reasons some people don't care for the sport.)

Re:Points

[formfeed]

And the ball is round

and....?

[Anonymous Coward]

Struggling to discover how this is even mildly interesting or newsworthy.

Re:and....?

[gl4ss]

“I think just generally speaking is what we’re trying to do is steer people toward partnerships we have with radio, television and our own web presence,” Moore said. “We don’t want people taken way from that experience.”

that it's supposedly an university.. sounds to me like it's a pro sports team first and everything else second.

Re:and....?

[nospam007]

"..sounds to me like it's a pro sports team first and everything else second."

To me it sounds like the ole 'protect our soon-to-be extinct business model at any costs' no matter how idiotic it is.

Re:and....?

[Anonymous Coward]

College and Pro Sports are getting bigger and bigger broadcast deals.

But please, continue the circlejerk about downloading or netflix or hulu or whatever.

Re:and....?

[bickerdyke]

And anyone cares for the people who don't want to be taken away from the twitter experience?

Re:and....?

[Lunix Nutcase]

You just know realized that college sports is a big business? Welcome to decades and decades ago?

Re:and....?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll explain it for you. Twitter is stupid. People who use it are stupid. But the school wants stupid people to watch the game on TV or play it on the radio because their contracts with TV and radio are based on the number of people who consume that media. So if all the stupid people stop watching the game on TV and, instead, look at stupid tweets like, "LOL, Jenkins got pwned on a post play. Score now 63-58 in fvr UW.", then U-dub gets less money and has to stop "hiring" quite as many A list basketball players. Oh, and they might not need any high-priced PR people either.

Re:and....?

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. Couldn't they just give some flannel-wearing hipster U-dub student a free ticket to the game in exchange for tweeting play-by-play from the university account? Maybe kick in some coffee or something to sweeten the deal.

Re:and....?

[gl4ss]

well.. I'm from Finland.

we have universities - and sports teams. but none of the university related sports is big business, why would they? sports is subsidized by different part of the government(mainly the gambling monopoly).

Only credential holders?

[Anonymous Coward]

So um... what's to prevent random attendees (or previous credential-holders who have gotten their credentials revoked) from live tweeting the whole game?

Re:Only credential holders?

[clark0r]

And then the reporter can re-tweet them? Surely if the reporter didn't write the tweet then they're not the ones breaking the rules?

Re:Only credential holders?

[gagol]

In real life, if I pay to go watch a sport event, I want to watch the game, not my smartphone...

Re:Only credential holders?

[peragrin]

if but this isn't about you paying to watch a game it is about radio and tv stations paying to watch a game so you can hear/see the play by play.

you can't always watch every game, sometimes you have to follow it other ways. twitter doesn't pay royalties for play by play announcing and so the university it trying to cut it out.

Re:Only credential holders?

[bickerdyke]

That's so 20th century!

Re:Only credential holders?

[advantis]

Not if you're a journalist you're not. Parent has a point: if the journalists exceed the limit, have their credentials revoked and start attending as private citizens instead, what's the UW to do about it? Ban communication devices and have them "detained" at a TSA-like security checkpoint at the entrance? Install a Faraday cage around the avenue and hinder the radio and TV stations too? Jam GSM/UMTS/CDMA specifically and hope they don't leak any jamming signal outside and get in trouble with the FCC?

Re:Only credential holders?

[Xenx]

They'll probably ban the person specifically, if it became an actual issue for them. One could argue how successful enforcing it would be, but nothing says they have to let them attend the games. For what it's worth, I understand both sides of this issue. However, I don't give a crap about either side.

Re:Only credential holders?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a moron.

Re:Only credential holders?

[zevans]

In the UK, the Director of Public Prosecutions has stated that a retweet of an arrestable tweet is itself arrestable.

Re:Only credential holders?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about watching it from TV and tweeting based on that? I don't think there's that much delay or is there?

Re:Only credential holders?

[Anonymous Coward]

And here I was, expecting to learn something new.

Re:Only credential holders?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK, the Director of Public Prosecutions has stated that a retweet of an arrestable tweet is itself arrestable.

What if the original tweet was in a country where the tweet wasn't an arrestable tweet?

Re:Only credential holders?

[NatasRevol]

Well, by retweeting it, they would have brought it into the country where it was an arrestable tweet.

So, time for a hanging!

Re:Only credential holders?

[wile_e8]

So um... what's to prevent random attendees (or previous credential-holders who have gotten their credentials revoked) from live tweeting the whole game?

Getting enough cell phone bandwidth when surrounded by several tens of thousands of other cell phones in the stadium.

So how is tweeting about semi-pro sports ...

[tlambert]

So how is tweeting about semi-pro sports ... news for nerds?

(Yes, I am aware that this is a university game, but any game where the sponsors control the media exposure in order to profit is at least semi-pro in nature to me, since being "Pro" is all about whether you get income from it)

Re:So how is tweeting about semi-pro sports ...

[gagol]

I believe the tweeting part is more or less related to nerds, enough for you to click and comment. I predict it will gather more interest than the emscripten story posted earlier!

Re:So how is tweeting about semi-pro sports ...

[Anonymous Coward]

emscriptem is nerds wasting time, slashdot loves those stories. bring on another beOS story!

cant understand the post

[Anonymous Coward]

what is this post even about? article just has corrections. why limit tweets? why are journalists tweeting. i thought they are paid to write stuff more deep than a 160 char stupid tweet.

News sources should simply skip a few games

[WindBourne]

Seriously, This harms ALL sports caster to have the university dictate how things will happen.
if ALL of the news sources would simply skip a couple of games, then the sports director would quickly change their mind.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[sumdumass]

I think the issue here is that a print reporter essentially becomes a broadcast journalist when tweeting the game play by play. The make royalty from the authorized broadcasts of the game and want people watching/listening to those instead of following tweets in near real time to which they get no income from.

The news sources won't skip the games because the readers/viewers/customers will look for the information if they do not carry it. Its essentially sending customers to the competition where they might like something and stay.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[bickerdyke]

Do you really think 140-chars snippets are an adequate replacement for a real tv or radio coverage?

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[EmagGeek]

That's actually a brilliant idea. I am sure there are lots of teams who would love to have media coverage of some kind, and allow the media to tweet all they want.

If the university suddenly found themselves blacklisted from media reporting everywhere, they would change their tune quickly.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[petermgreen]

Presumablly that depends on just how many of those 140-char snippets are sent....

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[bickerdyke]

No way.

I could follow a few matches of the last World Championship only via a text-only stream. And even without any limit, it does not capture the suspense and mood of following a match on tv or radio.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[Lunix Nutcase]

If the university suddenly found themselves blacklisted from media reporting everywhere, they would change their tune quickly.

In fantasy land they would find themselves blacklisted. In the real world, there will be plenty of people who will accept the conditions in order to pick up the readers the other outlets will be losing.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[bmuenzer]

Not for a full-time live coverage (as opposed to short live segments of my favourite team's game interrupted by commercials, segments of parallel games and top-40 hits).

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[JustOK]

Gooooooo....
Msg 1/400 .....
l!!!!!!!!!!!!
Msg 400/400

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[sumdumass]

I don't think it matters if it lessens the ability to generate revenue from the authorized broadcasts.

When I listen to a game on the radio, its all background noise until the commentator sounds excited, then I pay attention because something interesting just happened and they will repeat it. So for me, yes it could replace it. But if it makes the revenue from the radio or tv covering it worth less, its still a problem.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[bickerdyke]

A bunch of tweets scrolling by is not even background noise. And it doesn't even sound excited when something happens.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[Jason Levine]

Or, more to the point, if your sport's coverage can be substantially harmed by twenty one 140-character snippets, perhaps your sport just isn't exciting enough to merit live TV/radio coverage.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[bickerdyke]

That sums it up quite well.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[NatasRevol]

For some people, yes.

If I'm at one event, I like to follow along with another event to see how it's going. Hilights & scores work for me then.
In a close game, that might lead to lots of tweets.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[NatasRevol]

In your opinion.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[sumdumass]

doesn't need to sound excited if it's covering the same information in real time.

Re:News sources should simply skip a few games

[CODiNE]

A good idea, but you end up with a classic prisoners dilemma.

Please stop posting!

[mwvdlee]

This story has a 20 post limit, please stop posting or your account may be revoked.

Re:Please stop posting!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear, I wouldn't like that to happen.

Re:Please stop posting!

[deniable]

But I'm a football player. I can have 45-20=37 more.

Re:Please stop posting!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're a football player, how can you perform such complex calculations?

Re:Please stop posting!

[Anonymous Coward]

He's the kicker, an ex-soccer player from Brazil.

This is extremely important

[smittyoneeach]

People have got to be trained that the only sustainable liberty is managed liberty.
Bandwidth is a precious resource, and we cannot allow our Precious Bodily Phrases to be diminished by more than 20 Tweets per event. People could get excited, and drive up medical expenses.
Of course, managing communications will require a comprehensive regulatory regime. That means jobs. Now, don't get all wrapped around the fact that a day spent poring over Twitter logs and tallying Tweets has no real product. It's a job, and that means a reliable vote from the sucker in the chair.
The act of fining people for Exuberant Tweeting, of course, is a revenue stream of the government. That means more tax agents, bean counters, and a few more lines on the tax code. Don't worry; the tax code isn't predicted to topple until its height exceeds 10,000 meters.

revoke your *

[Anonymous Coward]

University will "revoke the credentials", so what ?!
Next time guy will be sitting next to TV, watching same game and tweeting twice as much.
And this sort of brings us to million dolar business idea - sports event live twitter coverage service ;)

Funny as hell

[gelfling]

The geek equivalent of 'that woman' who utterly hates cell phones everywhere at any time.

Freedom of the Press

[Anonymous Coward]

The University has no right to infringe upon the civil rights of duly credentialed press members who are there legally and with permission.

Members of the media have the right to document and record everything they see or hear, in any place they have a legal right to be (either through natural rights or through permission of a private property owner).

Even if the university does decide to violate the Constitutionally-protected civil rights of the press corps, they still cannot use force to prevent a press corps member from tweeting or otherwise documenting the event, so long as they can lawfully gain entry to the stadium to view and document the game.

Re:Freedom of the Press

[CRCulver]

The University has no right to infringe upon the civil rights of duly credentialed press members who are there legally and with permission.

It says right there in the Slashdot summary that this is a threat to "revoke the credentials of journalists". It says nothing about hassling the journalists after they have entered the venue. Get over yourself.

Sports writers should ignore UW.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sports reporters should just totally ignore the University of Washington. If someone plays a game against the UW then reporters should only make mention of those playing against UW. Make no mention of UW players no matter how poorly or how well they did.

If someone working for the school has something to say and calls a press conference they should find themselves with absolutely no reporters showing up. No reporters at all showing any interest in what they have to say. Just cold shoulder University of Washington and pretend it does not exist.

Re:Sports writers should ignore UW.

[Lunix Nutcase]

Yes be stupid and drive readers to your competitors. Brilliant plan.

Limit reporting

[john82]

This is just idiotic on the part of someone at the university. Perhaps the reporters should respond by limiting their articles to something roughly equivalent to 20 tweets. Most tweets are extremely short. Maybe a total of 800 characters would be sufficient. Let's see how the administration truly likes reduced coverage of their product.

Re:Limit reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is saying what's really behind it. It's about the NCAA thinking they have the right to control college football. That they have the right to sell rights they weren't ever given to people like ESPN. That's what's behind this. It happens at every school and it's the NCAA thugs who think they own it. They don't.

Re:Limit reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you are confused about who wields the power in this relationship...

Re:Limit reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

News "journalists" are playing in special Olympics of journalism to begin with. I'm surprised if they can come up with an article that long that doesn't say the same thing over and over again.

Then sit in the crowd

[Rogerborg]

And tweet whatever the frak you want. The concept of "journalists" as distinct from "everyone" is just ludicrous now.

Re:Then sit in the crowd

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ludicrous that you actually think that.

"Everyone" clearly are not journalists as proof of the vast amount of misinformation being reported as fact.

Re:Then sit in the crowd

[Anonymous Coward]

And tweet whatever the frak you want. The concept of "journalists" as distinct from "everyone" is just ludicrous now.

Except if you want to get into the dressing room to ask players something. Or go into the media room before/after the game and talk with the coach/es. Or if you're a photographer and want to be able to get in close (i.e., right at the side line beside the ref/linesman) to get better pictures.

Yes, anyone can watch the game (which was always true), but there are certain privileges that can only gotten via a pass.

Re:Then sit in the crowd

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes that's definitely true. I seem to remember a federal court case where a man in Boston filmed police with his phone, was arrested for doing so, and when he naturally sued them for it the federal court said he was absolutely right to do so. Part of their reasoning was that the 1st Amendment right to a free press can't be viewed as only applying to established press. The digital age empowers anyone to report news in a non-traditional sense.

That being said though, it seems really unlikely that those with press credentials would be willing to give them up just to send more tweets. I doubt that anyone is going to lose followers because they send fewer tweets and I also doubt that these tweets generate a significant amount of revenue. Also keep in mind that press credentials provide the holder with access to players, coaches, interviews, and information that they wouldn't otherwise get.

So while you are absolutely right that they could drop the credentials and buy a ticket and sit in the stands and tweet until their thumbs bleed, it just seems unlikely they are going to do so. Unless they want to stand on principle alone.

Re:Then sit in the crowd

[Karellen]

Are you seriously implying that "real journalists" (i.e. those employed by a corporate news organisation) would never spread misinformation while claiming to be reporting facts?

45 Tweets per Football Game ...

[slimdave]

Generous, when you consider that there's only eleven minutes of actual sport being played. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406.html

Re:45 Tweets per Football Game ...

[Anonymous Coward]

American football is a joke to the intelligent population :/

Maybe twitter is not the right technology for this

[Anonymous Coward]

It amazes me that twitter hangs on through all of this. It was a solution in search of a problem in the first place, and now it's causing problems with it's arbitrary solution to its non problem.

Unfathomable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good for you UW! As I read these comments, I am dumbfounded by all the posters here who can't RTFA or understand simple cause and effect relationships. If having broadcast rights and coverage is so 20th century, you guys must be way from the future. Tell me about the price of gold, please.

If twitter is regulated,

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Set up your own live blog
2. Tweet the URL
3. ???
4. Profit!

An extension of existing restrictions

[igaborf]

Reporters are allowed access to the event with the understanding that their reports will be published after the fact, thus protecting the value of the real-time reporting being done by the broadcast partners. All this rule is doing is telling the other reporters that they can't publish their content in real time.

These new rules are in response to newer technology, but other restrictions have been in place for years to protect licensees.

For example, as a spectator you aren't allowed to video record an event. Often you are not allowed to bring a "professional" grade still camera, either. (Of course, improvements in camera technology are making it easier to surreptitiously get around these restrictions.) The purpose of those restrictions is to force anyone wanting to see video or photos of the event to go to the licensee -- and pay for the privilege either directly or through advertising.

So, yes, it's about the money.

Re:An extension of existing restrictions

[quetwo]

Exactly this. I know our athletics department has been worried about people tuning out of the traditional media (Radio/TV) and trying to catch the game via twitter updates. This, in their mind, reduces the media partner's viability because of lost ad listens, and essentially brings a third "live media" into the mix -- one that may not have been authorized to do live media.

Re:An extension of existing restrictions

[Anonymous Coward]

+5, best post in the thread.

i just...

[Anonymous Coward]

blasted the hugest turd, god damn. tweet that, fgts.

Tweet Suppression

[aurizon]

The same tech that jams cellular data, also jams tweets, and the same faraday cage shielding that blocks radio transmission also blocks tweets.
Shielding is passive, and can easily be done as they build a covered arena. An open arena can be shielded by the height of the faraday walls, since cellular is line of sight. Jamming is probably illegal, but cheaper, but may be legal in your own closed space (the Arena)

How will people like no cell coverage inside arenas? No tweets? Will people actually welcome the effect? Doctors on call?

Re:Tweet Suppression

[Mike Buddha]

Jamming of any sort by a private entity in the US is in violation of FCC rules.

More Stupidity

[shawnhcorey]

Once more, human stupidity rears its ugly head. Limiting people's access limits their interest. Example: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121109/13423720996/draconian-downloading-law-japan-goes-into-effect-music-sales-drop.shtml They can kiss good-bye to their students support for sports...and their future alumni support too.

Re:More Stupidity

[PPH]

Yeah. Because we all know how few people followed collegiate sports before the advent of Twitter. Or the Internet.

The music market is different. People download to try something new out. There are very few potential football fans that wouldn't have thought of attending a game without having read a few Tweets beforehand.

Re:More Stupidity

[shawnhcorey]

Completely overlooking the fact that before Twitter there was less to distract them. And overlooking the fact that those who may have to do something else, like write a term paper, may want to follow the game via Twitter. Reducing access _always_ means reducing your audience.

Should be

[JustOK]

2800 characters should be enough for everyone.

Journalists only

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems that any fan can tweet as much as they want. Wouldn't that fall under the realm of free speech?

TRWTF is college football and other sports :(

[tibit]

I think we're all missing the elephant in the room. What the fuck has college got to do with sports? As far as I'm concerned, the sports scholarhips should be abandoned, and large-audience college sports banned. College is there to teach people things, not to entertain the masses. Professional sports are professional entertainment. It's no business of any college to offer that. I'm well aware of the U.S. reality where college sports attract donors and shit, but perhaps people should get a long hard look in the mirror and realize it's all stupid beyond belief. Why on Earth would I offer a scholarship for someone who, ostensibly, diverts their time to things *other* than pursuit of knowledge (namely: sports)?! Scholarships should be for kids who, I dunno, are good at learning things, doing resarch, that sort of thing? Maybe? Sigh.

Re:TRWTF is college football and other sports :(

[XxtraLarGe]

Why on Earth would I offer a scholarship for someone who, ostensibly, diverts their time to things *other* than pursuit of knowledge (namely: sports)?! Scholarships should be for kids who, I dunno, are good at learning things, doing resarch, that sort of thing?

You act as if there's nothing to be learned from playing sports. There's plenty, both strategy and teamwork spring to mind immediately. Also, sports give the opportunity to many socio-economically disadvantaged people to obtain a college education that they might not have otherwise had access to. Most colleges that have sports programs also have programs specifically aimed at those athletes to help them succeed academically. Does every college athlete graduate? No, but I think there are a great deal more that do get a college education than would get one if it weren't for sports. Finally revenue sports do provide a lot of money for scholarships for those kids who are good at learning things, doing resarch (sic), that sort of thing...

Re:TRWTF is college football and other sports :(

[PPH]

You act as if there's nothing to be learned from playing sports. There's plenty, both strategy and teamwork spring to mind immediately.

You are addressing an audience largely involved in intellectual pursuits. Teamwork and loyalty to the organization are less important than the physics or logic supporting our decisions. If that is wrong, then the team is wrong. Not a concept I see much from ex-jock co-workers and management.

The whole concept of needing competition to achieve some goal runs counter to the drive to continually improve a product or process absent that competition.

Also, sports give the opportunity to many socio-economically disadvantaged people to obtain a college education that they might not have otherwise had access to.

It would be better to put the money into some scholarships for underprivileged talented kids. The dollars spent would buy more degrees.

Yeah, I know. Many sports are self-supporting. So let the college sponsor a team. If some of the players want to take their salary and enroll in school, fine. But don't stretch the definition of 'student' to capture the necessary roster of first string players to capture a championship. And the profits from ticket sales and TV rights can still be funneled into scholarship programs.

Re:TRWTF is college football and other sports :(

[SleazyRidr]

While I agree with you that the degree of college sports has grown far beyond its usefulness, it was based on solid ideas. Take people who are good at sports, get them into college, make them maintain a decent GPA and show them off to the world. All the other underprivelleged children can then look at what that person has acheived an be motivated to try themselves. Lifting up the lower parts of our society is an important part of the role sports play.

Re:TRWTF is college football and other sports :(

[tibit]

Whatever you learn playing sports can be learned doing whatever it is that you're supposed to be doing in the first place. So that argument doesn't fly with me. It's a diversion of precious time, pure and simple, never mind a cost on the various college medical insurance programs. Football isn't really a low-risk, low-injury thing.

As for socioeconomically disadvantaged people: hey, someone organizes their sports activities. It's rare that they'd be coming straight from their neighborhood court ready to rake in athletic scholarships. Every minute spent working with those kids teaching them sports should be spent, instead, teaching them things that actually pay the bills in out-of-school-life. Even teaching them art would be IMHO time better spent.

Re:TRWTF is college football and other sports :(

[tibit]

Why the heck would I care, as an employer other than a sports team, or a college admissions counselor, that someone was good at sports? I care that they are good at science or art or engineering or medicine or business or whatever their education will be in, or their job will be in. Yeah, the kiddo is a good team player. So what. He's a good team player who wouldn't know a Newton's law from Declaration of Independence. Collegiate sports are based on a false premise, pure and simple. Yeah, there are notable individuals who happened to be good at whatever else they were supposed to be good at in the first place, and they happened to be good at sports as their chosen hobby. Why the heck is the sport hobby placed on a pedestal and enjoying the limelight?

Re:TRWTF is college football and other sports :(

[PPH]

Actually, it was the other way around. People who went to school to pursue academic interests but also had aptitude for playing sports did so. They'd play, but with the idea that they'd be getting out of school and going into a profession related to their education. But then college (and sadly high school) has become a farm team for the NFL and NBA.

Re:TRWTF is college football and other sports :(

[SleazyRidr]

Hence the GPA requirements. Again, I agree that sports have been put on too tall of a pedestal but the idea of taking someone who has shown the dedication nesessary to excel at sports and encourage them to use that dedication towards academic pursuits is a noble one.

Re:TRWTF is college football and other sports :(

[tibit]

They shouldn't have been encouraged to apply their, um, perseverance to sports in the first place. It's a waste of time. When you start in college and you've already done something in your field, even if it was just a hobby, that's a big head-start. Spending that time doing sports as something to get your foot into college is just being irresponsible IMHO. I don't care if kids do sports recreationally, but it's like playing chess. It shouldn't be getting you into college or anywhere else. They're supposed to work on their academics or, I dunno, even "coding php" would be time better spent.

Re:TRWTF is college football and other sports :(

[XxtraLarGe]

Every minute spent working with those kids teaching them sports should be spent, instead, teaching them things that actually pay the bills in out-of-school-life.

False dichotomy. If you went to college, you know that you didn't spend every minute on education, so why should they? Furthermore, student athletes actually have higher graduation rates than non-athlete students.

Re:TRWTF is college football and other sports :(

[tibit]

Yeah, I didn't spend every minute on education, but then my hobbies weren't placed on a pedestal either, they simply were contributing to my graduate work directly, that's all. As for graduation rates: that's IMHO the most improperly used number ever. So what that student athletes have higher graduation rates. If you read the article you linked to, you'll see that there are good arguments why NCAA's pitch is factual but misses important factors that, when taken into account, make the pitch mostly irrelevant.

Unfollow Soon

[SumterLiving]

Way off topic but any person I "Follow" who tweets 20-30 times in a single day???? I unfollow them. No one outside of family has 20-30 tweets worth of information important enough to put up with that many tweets. Obviously YMMV

OK,

[Anonymous Coward]

Take several devices using different accounts.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

[alfredo]

Take several devices under different accounts. When you reach your limit on all devices, text to the office and they then tweet your text.

2 breaths a minute

[kharchenko]

Try to exhale more often than allowed and we'll charge you extra!

Seattle Time UW Sports section -

[scrout]

U of W won/lost.

Who fucking cares ? NCAA sports are a crooked mess

[Anonymous Coward]

The NCAA is as corrupt as any self-respecting third world dictatorship.

They want all the money for themselves.

This is NOT news for nerds -- nerds are too smart to waste their time
on idiocy like football or basketball, which are the sort of athletics embraced
by idiot rednecks and blacks.