Thanks to David Scott at Scott’s Shots for tipping us off to new rules by the NCAA that now allows for those holding media credentials to NCAA championship events the right to live blog from these games.

A lot of attention was paid to this issue this past spring when Brian Bennett of the Louisville Courier-Journal was ejected from a NCAA regional baseball tournament game for live blogging in the press box.  We commented on that incident here. 

The NCAA, rightly so, received a lot of criticism over its handling of the case and needed to make changes. I give the NCAA credit for allowing live blogging.  It’s a good move.  But its insistence on keeping its eye on the live blogs is disturbing.

Under the new rules the NCAA requires that the blogging organization must submit their link to their “ncaasports.com Blog Central” site.  They are also required to place an ncaasports.com logo and link on their site.  The NCAA will also monitor the blogs to ensure that reporters do not exceed the number of posts allowed for each event.

I would love to be the people at the NCAA who will actually spend the time to monitor all the blogs and keep track of how many times they post.  Sounds like a great gig.  I doubt it will dedicate the resources to do this.  Nor should it.

Again, the NCAA is missing the boat.  By allowing live blogging, especially of some of the fringe sports or sports at the lower divisions, it would do nothing but paint these competitions in a positive light.  

The move to allow live blogging is a good one.  But if the NCAA really cares about promoting its product it should remove all restrictions and allow bloggers to post as often as they’d like.