Subscribe to the NCSA BlogWho Owns High School Sports?
April 9th, 2009 - byTV rights and online marketing deals are usually the subject of collective bargaining agreements of professional sports leagues. They are becoming increasingly important in college athletics as teams try to maximize revenue in any way possible. But, High Schools arguing over ownership rights takes things to a whole new level. The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletics Association is suing the Wisconsin Newspaper Association and Gannett Co. after they streamed a webcast of a high school basketball playoff game.
The WIAA is making the argument that, “the association alone has the right to stream school athletic games online.” They also argue that they have the sole right “to control the transmission, Internet stream, photo, image, film, videotape, audiotape, writing, drawing or other depiction or description of any game.”
Of course a counter-suit was filed with the WNA arguing, “WIAA has no right to interfere with Newspapers’ editorial discretion to report tournament events utilizing any technology of their choosing, including photography and Internet streaming, subject only to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions applied equally to all similarly situated journalists.”
The counter suit goes so far to claim that the WIAA is actually invoicing local newspapers for covering the events they have historically reported on for years. Peter Fox the executive director of the Wisconsin Newspaper sums up their argument by saying, “The issue for Wisconsin newspapers is the WIAA’s overarching claim of ownership of all these aspects of hometown, high school sports.”
Should the Association be able to claim ownership rights? If not, does somebody else own them? Would you still feel the same way if ESPN was making millions of dollars by showcasing high school games? (Don’t laugh, last weekend was the first ESPN RISE National High School Basketball Invitational)
What do you think?
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April 9th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I believe that the since the sporting events are state funded they in the public domain. If ESPN or any other entity finds a way to monetize the events than they will have to pay state taxes they way any other business would.
If you take the WIAA’s argument a step further they would control even homemade footage shot by parent trying to help their son or daughter get recruited. That notion would seem absurd to anyone.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
It appears the WIAA is over-reaching in order to get what they want. Certainly they should provide guidance for all high schools who are members. But as inexpensive as the technology is now, certainly any tech-savvy high school could stream every athletic contest at their school. This is no different than what a number of NCAA institutions do with their non-revenue sports now. Add into the mix an aggressive high school booster club who wants to make some money for their athletes and there needs to be an entity who protects teen-aged student-athletes from exploitation. There is an element of ESPN providing national coverage for high school sports that makes me REAL NERVOUS! I think any parent should be real nervous. Should the overseeing entity be the state athletic association or each school district? As long as decisions of making a high school contest publicly available is being made by the local school district so that affected parents can have significant input, then the exploitation of those student-athletes for financial gain will be minimized. So the local school district should be the “owner” of their high schools sports. State high school athletic associations should provide guidance. News entities should have the highest ethics in dealing with this issue. If they are making money off of the coverage, then they are effectively exploiting HS student-athletes. Parents in each school district need to have the choice of whether they should always allow, sometimes allow, never allow that coverage. Of course, looking at news organizations behavior in the past 10 years, ethics is not their strong suit. That’s why the countersuit by the news organization should be laughed at. They’re looking for profit – no other reason. The counter-suit should be thrown out.