Reading the Wall Street Journal in the airport today, I read an article about the NFL’s ever evolving rules and restrictions on media coverage of NFL properties and game coverage.
The league recently placed new restrictions on covereage. Outlets are limited to 45 seconds of online audio and video taken while on NFL property, required to remove such, material after 24 hours, and must include links to relevant NFL websites. Clearly, the NFL is trying to prevent their IP from spanning the vast tail of the net including sites like YouTube. They want to become the authority in providing this content to users reaping the ads revenue and sales that will possibly come. However I think this will hurt their branding ability on the whole. NFL.com will never become the distination sites like ESPN or YouTube currently are for this sort of media. Bad choice.
My point that the NFL didn’t really become the huge corporate revenue stream until little over a decade ago. Shows like SportsCenter extended the image of the league past the weekend games and allowed the common viewer access to the athletes, coaches, and teams.
Not only does this new policy hinder these same media outlets from serving their audience, but it extends the divide between athletes and fans that the press has tried to erode in recent years. In short, it restricts the amount of the story fans will be able to consume.
Though the NFL has little to fear from other leagues like the short-lived XFL or Areana Football in terms of market share, this media policy sells the league short. They should continue to capitalize on their coveage deals, advertising and apperal revenue. Crippling a proven ability to drive branding and marketing gains however makes little business sense.
