NFL's bold steps To Control Media Coverage; blur media boundaries

[EV_Ares]

As the NFL kicks off its 88th season this week, fans will resume their love affair with America's favorite sport. But there's also a different game underway, one that is beginning to reshape when, where and how fans experience pro football. The nation's richest and most powerful sports league has launched a behind-the-scenes effort to seize greater control over what fans see, read and hear — and chart an even more lucrative course for itself in the process. It's taking a series of steps to drive more fans and advertisers toward its own NFL Network cable channel and NFL.com website. And at a time when the NFL is trying to clean up its image by cracking down on team personnel who have off-field conduct problems, the league also is imposing new — critics say onerous — restrictions on how the independent media cover its players, coaches and teams.

Among the new and controversial restrictions this year: News organization websites not affiliated with the NFL are limited to 45 seconds of video/audio clips a day of team personnel at team facilities. This includes material from interviews, news conferences and practice footage.

Together, the moves represent an unprecedented attempt by the NFL to manage how it's portrayed to the public. They also could offer a glimpse of where sports programming is headed: Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, now an image consultant and adviser to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, predicts fans soon will confront an increasingly cluttered media landscape in which more pro leagues and college conferences offer their own TV channels and websites.

In 2009, Major League Baseball will follow the lead of the NFL Network and NBA TV by launching the MLB Channel, Fleischer notes. Such league-owned outlets can give fans access to players and teams that traditional media aren't granted — while casting news, and controversies, on the league's terms.

Note who is involved in this kind of media control:

Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, now an image consultant and adviser to Major League Baseball
Together, the moves represent an unprecedented attempt by the NFL to manage how it's portrayed to the public. They also could offer a glimpse of where sports programming is headed.

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http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2007-09-06-nfl-media_N.htm?csp=34