An uproar in the SEC, Southeastern Conference, began last week when conference officials sent out a dictate that all social media would be banned at games.
"Fans may not disseminate … any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event."
The reasoning was that the use of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc, to send updates, photos and video were cutting into the exclusive TV rights the SEC has with CBS and ESPN.
After all manner of criticism over this rule, SEC officials decided yesterday to tone down the rule. They have now revised their guideline to read:
"video will still be off-limits, it looks like tweets, Facebook status
updates, and even pictures will be acceptable, so long as they are for
non-commercial use."
But let's take a look at the Big Ten, the SEC's polar opposite when it comes to social media. According to Brett Feddern of The Bleacher Report:
The Big Ten seems to be taking the exact opposite approach, a sign
that they clearly get the direction of where the world is headed. Their
social media campaign encourages and embraces fan participation.
The Big Ten actively promotes the use of social media, sharing
content online in a plethora of different formats so that fans can
redistribute and utilize. On their website, they offer a large
selection of team podcasts for download and offer the ability to embed
their videos so bloggers can post videos to their sites. They also list all of the Big Ten team Twitter and Facebook accounts
and encourage fans to continue sending them more information.
Good job Big Ten. Now it's time to find out what the Big 12 is doing.