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POSTED 9:44 p.m. EDT, May 17, 2007
LEAGUE PUTTING THE SCREWS TO WEB SITES?
The National Football League is adopting a new policy regarding content on non-NFL web sites.
Such non-NFL sites may post no NFL-related video or audio of longer than 45 seconds. And the video or audio may be archived for no more than 24 hours. And the pages on which the video or audio appears must link both to NFL.com and to the official site of the team in question.
An industry source tipped us off to the existence of the policy, and Bill Emkow of Mlive.com has posted the full content of the letter.
The change only applies to sites that incorporate video and/or audio of practices, press conferences, interviews etc. Since we do none of that, it doesn't affect us at all. In fact, by limiting the sites that would otherwise go beyond the terms of the new policy, the revision indirectly helps us by giving those sites one less feature that would make those sites more attractive than sites like PFT.
The move will cause many in the media to conclude that this is the next step in the league's efforts to control not only the game but the coverage of it. There is already much resentment in the industry regarding the perception that the league is spoon-feeding news and information to NFL.com and NFL Network. With the new limitations on audio and video, fans will have to rely more and more on NFL.com and the official team web sites.
As we see it, thems the breaks. The media can either cry about it, or we can go find the cheese. Frankly, there will always be a market for publications that are truly objective in their coverage of the league, regardless of whether said publications can play more than 45 seconds of audio or video. Even if the NFL were to cultivate in-house journalists and analysts who were truly independent and free to speak their minds, there would still be the perception that there are lines that can't be crossed and topics that can't be broached.
So what we're basically saying is that, after you go to the team-owned and league-owned sources of information, comes to sites like this one for insights and analysis that are certain to be unaffected by concerns that one or more of the 32 folks who own NFL teams might not like what we have to say.
LEAGUE PUTTING THE SCREWS TO WEB SITES?
The National Football League is adopting a new policy regarding content on non-NFL web sites.
Such non-NFL sites may post no NFL-related video or audio of longer than 45 seconds. And the video or audio may be archived for no more than 24 hours. And the pages on which the video or audio appears must link both to NFL.com and to the official site of the team in question.
An industry source tipped us off to the existence of the policy, and Bill Emkow of Mlive.com has posted the full content of the letter.
The change only applies to sites that incorporate video and/or audio of practices, press conferences, interviews etc. Since we do none of that, it doesn't affect us at all. In fact, by limiting the sites that would otherwise go beyond the terms of the new policy, the revision indirectly helps us by giving those sites one less feature that would make those sites more attractive than sites like PFT.
The move will cause many in the media to conclude that this is the next step in the league's efforts to control not only the game but the coverage of it. There is already much resentment in the industry regarding the perception that the league is spoon-feeding news and information to NFL.com and NFL Network. With the new limitations on audio and video, fans will have to rely more and more on NFL.com and the official team web sites.
As we see it, thems the breaks. The media can either cry about it, or we can go find the cheese. Frankly, there will always be a market for publications that are truly objective in their coverage of the league, regardless of whether said publications can play more than 45 seconds of audio or video. Even if the NFL were to cultivate in-house journalists and analysts who were truly independent and free to speak their minds, there would still be the perception that there are lines that can't be crossed and topics that can't be broached.
So what we're basically saying is that, after you go to the team-owned and league-owned sources of information, comes to sites like this one for insights and analysis that are certain to be unaffected by concerns that one or more of the 32 folks who own NFL teams might not like what we have to say.