davidtoback

SEC Bans Mobile Updates

If the SEC hadn’t flexed their college football conference muscle previously with their $3 Billion television rights deal, they sure did with their latest rules decree:

“Ticketed fans can’t produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the Event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event.”

With the increased takeover of social media and the ultimate availability for instant information updates, the SEC feels their $3 Billion deal is in jeopardy.  That’s right, the richest and most powerful conference in the NCAA fears the tweets, facebook updates, and instant blogging of fans in attendance…as if the television audience will turn off their TV’s and wait patiently by their computers, iphones, and crackberry’s, for the next twitter update.  Who wants to watch a college football game anymore when you can just get updates from people in the stands?  That sounds like so much more fun!

Seriously, this is not a joke folks.  I wish it was, honestly, because me writing about this has made it official that the SEC has lost its collective mind.  Or maybe I’ve lost my mind to write about it.  Either way, someone has lost it.  I’m just wondering what the meeting was like when some delusional corporate suit convinced everyone that these social media outlets could affect their TV audience and therefore cannibalize their viewing audience.

If there was ever a time to pronounce the SEC a monopoly and quite possibly a dictatorship, it’s now.  How can an Athletic Conference tell people what they can and cannot do on their cell phones? How can they Mandate that fans cannot voice their opinion, pleasure, displeasure, or excitement with their favorite team?  Sounds like a civil rights infraction to me…you know that thing called the 1^st Amendment – Freedom of Speech.

On the other side, I understand there are fan rules that are stipulated on each ticket and this new ruling may be a forecast to what technology may allow in the future.  I’d imagine they fear the increased capability of video phones which could ultimately allow a user to broadcast a game live via the internet.  But that type of capability isn’t available just yet, so why put the rule in place now?

For once, it would be nice if college sports, especially football, were not so obviously dictated by money.  If fans were to stop watching games on TV and follow the every word of those in the twitterverse, blogosphere, and facebook world, it would mark the end of exclusive TV Network deals, home viewing parties, and I’d imagine there would be some pretty empty sports bars.

Let’s be real SEC, that’s just not going to happen in the foreseeable future.  The world of social media will not replace the excitement of watching a game on LIVE TV.  Seeing the game winning touchdown as time expires cannot be replicated or expressed the same way with words or short video clips as currently available.  Until technology advances to the point where TV is rivaled by mobile devices, why go to this extent and anger your fans?

SEC big wigs - loosen your ties, open a button, take your chokehold off of college sports and let fans communicate their game experience…after all, they did pay to watch amateur athletics, which has helped make you richer than many University budgets in this country.

As Always, Thanks For Reading

David Toback