The Pravda Prerogative

Most of the time he just sits in the owners' lap, but make him mad...

Here is what each of the 32 NFL teams does well: manage a football team. Here is what the Washington Post does well: publish news. That's pretty much going to be the case going forward I think.

But someone, some genius in a league office thinks otherwise. Effective immediately, news organzations will be limited to 45 seconds the footage they can show over the internet. This policy is designed to 'protect' the 'internet operations' of each team and, one presumes, usher in a Great New Age of enlightened commentary, news, opinion and multimedia coverage wherein each team honestly, candidly and forthrightly covers itself.

Redskins fans have known for some time that the team restricts who can film where, and in fact the only outside camera to cover practice and cover interviews has been NBC Channel 4, the Redskins' longtime media sponsor. George Michael sitting there with Sonny Jurgensen and whatever coach or player, that's the result of an exclusive deal.

Codifying this policy in this way, explicitly to limit external coverage, that's bad news for three reasons: objectivity of coverage, quality of coverage and the concept of comparative advantage.

Objectivity of Coverage
A business simply cannot be objective about covering itself. In the wake of the Clinton Portis doesn't think dogfighting is a big deal mini-scandal, the redskins.com issued all of a two line press release (alt link when that one drops into the memory hole), and that was it. Someone will be asking Clinton about this in training camp and even if the team is rolling film we won't see his answer on RedskinsRoundup or whatever name they will come up with for their pathetic version of a news program.

Also, we are not likely to hear about things like Shawn Springs refusing to take a paycut or Sean Taylor being maybe possibly unhappy with the team or his contract.

Greg Aiello, NFL spokeshole had this to say(op. cit.):

"We're trying to balance protection of our business assets with the equally important need to receive extensive news media coverage and communicate with as many fans as possible on a regular basis," Aiello said. "We have no interest in controlling or limiting what news Web sites do, except limiting the use of video that undermines our own Internet operations. We have important business interests on the Internet, and we have to be careful about that."

So they do have an interest in regulating what can be reported and they need to receive extensive media coverage. Greg should take a cue from Paris Hilton: her problem is not that the public is seeing the crude porno she made, her problem is that she made it. The NFL wants to be able to keep getting all the coverage they have always had, only now that news websites are finally taking up the cause for streaming media narrowcasting, the NFL wants everyone to come to it for news.


Quality of Coverage
Redskins.com is already amatuerish in its operations, and I confess I don't know much about other teams' sites and news operations but Dan Snyder strikes me as a man that believes the Redskins product already sells itself and that us fans would walk ten miles through snow to stand in the team's garbage so what does it matter if there are typos in the press releases, poor lighting in the official team photos and jerky camera work in the video. Redskins.com comes across to me as looking good at a distance but like the team overall, take a closer look and it's a wonder they can stay in business.

About restricting cameras on site, Redskins spokeshole Chris Helein said this (op. cit.):

"There are a number of reasons for [barring videographers], but it's basically a content issue," said Redskins spokesman Chris Helein. "I won't hide . . . the fact that the NFL and everything that surrounds it is valuable content" that enhances a team's Web site.

The point I am trying to make here is that all the exclusivity in the world doesn't mean shit if you can't honor that content with quality packaging, presentation. And the Redskins have not really demonstrated to me they have it.


Comparative Advantage
This economic theory states that when Party A can produce a good or a service at a lower relative cost than Party B, the two parties should trade, even if Party B can also produce that good or service. The Washington Post, Washington Times, SportsTalk 980, WRC NBC Channel 4, etc are professional news organizations; producing news is all they do. They are massively invested into TV, print, the web, talent and distribution.

There's no way the Redskins individually, or the league at large, can replicate this ability at a lower cost. Therefore Redskins fans will be getting substandard coverage from the team
even as the team must pay more relatively speaking to create its own coverage.

If we assume there is a league-wide platform or cookbook for each team to use in creating and distributing its original content, the cost of that standard has to get paid by someone, and the teams will just pass it on to the consumers. I want my football team to concentrate on winning games and the only highlight packages I want the team spending time on are the ones that Jason Campbell will use to pick apart opposing defenses.

This new policy will pit the teams against the organizations that cover them. A wise man once said, don't get in a fight with the guy that owns the ink factory. The Sopranos parodies of the 45-second policy will seem funny in August, but when the ball gets rolling in September, if the Post et al think the team is shafting them just so the team can pub all the shitty shiny happy video they can on a website that gets a tiny fraction of the traffic of the Post, the coverage will not be favorable.



Attacking dog from here.