NCAA squelches Trackshark

Looks as though the NCAA sees Trackshark and Flocasts as a threat. The NCAA allows television stations, newspapers, magazines, web journalists and photographers, athletic department videographers, journalists, and photographers, etc. to freely record and disseminate information on meets real-time without delay sans fee, license, without any restrictions, but for some reason has singled out and targeted for extraordinary treatment, the videos on Tom Borish's and Mark Florian's websites. This treatment is unfair. If all media outlets were treated in exactly the same manner, there would be no information about the meets except from the NCAA. Does the NCAA have the budget to staff every athletic event with it's own reporters, photographers, videographers, sound technicians, etc. The NCAA would need to hire 10,000 people to cover all of the football, baseball, track and field, soccer, cross country, etc. meets. The NCAA needs the media to provide coverage and publicize events. I think the Flocasts and Trackshark guys are the greatest and the NCAA should treat them the same way as the other media outlets are treated. Just my 2 cents.

Looks as though the NCAA sees Trackshark and Flocasts as a threat. The NCAA allows television stations, newspapers, magazines, web journalists and photographers, athletic department videographers, journalists, and photographers, etc. to freely record and disseminate information on meets real-time without delay sans fee, license, without any restrictions, but for some reason has singled out and targeted for extraordinary treatment, the videos on Tom Borish's and Mark Florian's websites. This treatment is unfair. If all media outlets were treated in exactly the same manner, there would be no information about the meets except from the NCAA. Does the NCAA have the budget to staff every athletic event with it's own reporters, photographers, videographers, sound technicians, etc. The NCAA would need to hire 10,000 people to cover all of the football, baseball, track and field, soccer, cross country, etc. meets. The NCAA needs the media to provide coverage and publicize events. I think the Flocasts and Trackshark guys are the greatest and the NCAA should treat them the same way as the other media outlets are treated. Just my 2 cents.

We've been down this road before...the NCAA Track & Field championships or for that matter, any national championship owned/sanctioned by the NCAA remains the intellectual property of the NCAA AND its member institutions.

As much as I like Tom & Mark, and realize how much of a great service they do to the track/running community, until they or any other web site fork over the money to the NCAA for rights fees, the meet remains the intellectual property of the NCAA...end of story!

On the back of every media credential is a series of paragraphs that outline what each credential holder can/can't do...if you can't follow it, you risk getting your credential pulled--simple as that!

You can kick, whine, post, and scream all you want, but the only way you'll see any real change on the part of the NCAA is if you show them a stack of paper printed by the US Treasury with pictures of Ben Franklin...

bull turkey. my station doesn't pay the ncaa. i'm one of the TV producers that covers NCAA games from time to time. we can broadcast any v clips we want. there's a hidden issue here that need to be uncovered. my buds at our other local also does not pay a dime. as a journalist i'd like to know what the issue really is, it surely isn't money or IP, if it was then we'd be kicked out too.

I agree...one other item regarding this year's ncaa meet was that Trackshark posted the accepted entries to the national meet before it was up on the official ncaa website. They kind of jumped the gun and soon thereafter they had to pull it back off of the web as there were some mistakes and the accepted entry list had to be revised. But how did Trackshark get the entry list prior to the posting on the ncaa website? Someone on the committee had to provide this info.

I also believe that Trackshark and Flotrack are technological advancements that the ncaa should be encouraged to use as technology and interest increase. How do you create a more interested and informed fan base? In this day and age it is through the grass root support of entities like Trackshark and Flotrack that you continue to create an interest or buzz which hopefully will translate into better attendance when the ncaa meet start now to move around the country.

Speaking of attendance...the "3 years at one site so that we can nurture a fan base" idea saw limited success at the Sacramento location. In talking to locals, the first year was unique but the interest lessened each year to the point of the public taking it for granted that a meet of this quality would be available every year. A 10:00 AM start for the final day didn't affect the athletic performances but did affect attendance significantly, that and absurdly high ticket prices for not so great sight lines...but I digress.

Viacom has it correct.

When I received the letter in the mail, that's exactly what the NCAA stated.

Whether or not if it was even broadcasted on televistion doesn't matter. Furthermore, we were told to not even link to any NCAA Championship videos, such as anyone posting a message of our forums to a video from an NCAA meet in the past that's hosted by YouTube.

It's the property of the NCAA and this is also why Flocasts (I assume they were told the same deal) had to take down the NCAA Division II videos.

This was my misunderstaning in terms of it not being televised. Since I knew no television outlet paid for the rights to broadcast it, I thought it would be fine to post the videos.

I was unaware of the rule by the NCAA and they clearly know about my site and sent the letter right away.

It's unfortunate that the people behind the camera did such great work for us and it all went to waste. Unfortunately, those are the rules and the NCAA owns the rights to all Championship videos.

Miles Brand wrote:

one other item regarding this year's ncaa meet was that Trackshark posted the accepted entries to the national meet before it was up on the official ncaa website. They kind of jumped the gun and soon thereafter they had to pull it back off of the web as there were some mistakes and the accepted entry list had to be revised. But how did Trackshark get the entry list prior to the posting on the ncaa website? Someone on the committee had to provide this info.

We get the same file that gets pulled from the NCAA database page, so what you stated is incorrect. Everything was real-time as they updated it. So it was impossible for us to "jump the gun" or get a hold of the entry list, as you stated. It's the same file. When they make changes, you see the same results on our site.

e-mail

pmr@ncaa.org

and let them know if it pisses you off that they don't allow trackshark to post video's of the East region or flocast to film NCAA races...

Who knows, maybe filling their inboxes will teach them a lesson...or something??

What is the deal? wrote:

e-mail

pmr@ncaa.org

and let them know if it pisses you off that they don't allow trackshark to post video's of the East region or flocast to film NCAA races...

Who knows, maybe filling their inboxes will teach them a lesson...or something??

I can appreciate the willing to send in an opinion, but like my head coach used to say, "it's like beating your head against a brick wall."

That's not going to change anything unless you want to pony up some cash to help pay for the exclusive rights.

The NCAA isn't going to give that kind of access away for free.

Editorial usage. No mags, papers, websites, TV stations have to pay the NCAA. So why should TS or FC websites, or TB or MF the persons have to pay when noone else has to. What's the real issue here. I don't see it. We need to keep pouncing on the NCAA until we get answers. Who are the people at the NCAA making such stupid decisions.

The magazines, newspapers, TV news stations, etc. are reporting on the meet after the fact. And even then they are paying a fee for some of the aspects of those reports. Think those photos in the newspaper are free? Think the clips on the nightly news or Sportscenter are free? Nope, all cost money. Some stations will send their cameras to the meet, but the use of those images are tightly controlled by the restrictions of the press credentials. For example, KCRA (the local Sacto station) can't produce and sell a DVD of the NCAA track meet, but they are allowed to show a few clips of the "local boy doing well" in the triple jump.

Think about it this way: the NCAA charges for admission to the national track meet, as it does with nearly every other regular season and championship competition in every sport. The NCAA wants to protect this revenue stream (around 15000 people @ $xx a head...I don't know the exact numbers but you can do the math). If someone with a camera is broadcasting the meet from the stands and broadcasting live on the internet, the reduces the incentive of attending the meet. For a major sport like baseball or football, you're going to have enough of a fan base to fill the stadium and have plenty of people watching at home. However, track and field isn't as popular (really?).

However, the NCAA wants more exposure than the few thousand in the stands. But it also wants to be able to cover the expenses of the meet and deflect any possible loss in gate revenue. So broadcasting rights are sold to the highest bidder. The networks then have contracts with the NCAA to show these meets/games. They pay the NCAA to film the meet and for the rights to any video. Advertisers then pay the networks for ad space during the broadcasts. And we then pay advertisers. And around and around we go.

As the Internet grows, we're going to start seeing some changes in the way this is done. The archive of the Pre Meet is great, and I think it's something we're going to see more of.

bull turkey wrote:

bull turkey. my station doesn't pay the ncaa. i'm one of the TV producers that covers NCAA games from time to time. we can broadcast any v clips we want. there's a hidden issue here that need to be uncovered. my buds at our other local also does not pay a dime. as a journalist i'd like to know what the issue really is, it surely isn't money or IP, if it was then we'd be kicked out too.

the difference is clips versus the whole race/meet. your station isn't allowed to show a whole ncaa tournament basketball game, is it? of course not. same applies here.

it's patently stupid for the ncaa to do this, especially considering the obvious point that no one else seem to hold the rights to the meet(like cbs does for the b-ball tournament) or, at the very least, is actually using such rights. charge trackshark and whomever else a nominal fee. grow the sport.

Who is broadcasting the NCAA East Regional Meet? Isn't that the key question? I see no loss of revenue anywhere on this issue. No one, with exception of the athletes and their families (and letsrun readers) cares a wit about the NCAA Regional meet.

Camcorders of the world unite and post!

i could be wrong on this, but i think CBS holds the rights to track "post-season" (along with most other collegiate post-seasons). of course, even if they do, CBS obviously didn't put it on TV or anywhere else. maybe they'll use some clips from the regionals for their NCAA broadcast but i don't think that requires a complete blacking out. like i said, charge a nominal fee and let these other outlets cover it.

wrong. there no fee for any news media outlet. there were hundreds of outlets that were at sac st. none paid any \'fee\' to the ncaa.

Who cares if it's beating your head against a brick wall. It takes 2 minutes to e-mail them...their server should have such a dificult time filtering all the e-mails it will break down.

maybe. but why the secrecy. does the NCAA think they are the Kremlin ?

\'editorial\' means no fee

And editorial also means not showing complete races/events/etc. For example, if a television program is doing a review of a film, it is acceptable to show clips of the film. It is not acceptable, without prior permission or fees, to broadcast large portions of the film. If trackshark wants a free press credential to show up to the NCAA meet, film clips of races to use in a larger context (i.e. a post meet "highlights" show), and post them online, they have every right to do that. However, just like the 6 o'clock news does not show full baseball games, trackshark cannot provide the entire meet without securing broadcast rights. Post race interviews are a completely different issue.