Sports Leagues and the New Media

Good story in The New York Times (free subscription required) on the way that sports leagues are attempting to deal with changing sports media. The piece touches on some issues that we have discussed here in the past: credentialing independent bloggers and allowing them access to the locker room and other places; restricting audio and video clips on media web sites and blogs; and live blogging the games. Apparently, some members of the press have floated the idea that the First Amendment has a role to play in publicly funded stadiums, a point on which I have written and spoken a great deal.

The upshot is that leagues and the media are butting heads over the future of sports coverage. Everyone is staking out a position and the Media Law Resource Center is researching the issues for possible future litigation, including the First Amendment/state actor issues and more targeting of anti-trust exemptions. But no one quite knows where this is going to come out.

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