The University Athletic Department faced vocal opposition from the moment it made public a proposal to limit how much Duck footage a television sportscast could air.
Johnson Hall and the Casanova Center were bombarded with an avalanche of angry letters from national media organizations, scathing editorials in Oregon newspapers and threats of legal action. On Aug. 8, the same time national polls had the Ducks in the top 10 and national magazines with quarterback Joey Harrington on the cover were released, Athletic Director Bill Moos announced the school would drop all plans to implement the proposal, allowing the industry to police itself.
The proposed policy would have limited broadcasters to 20 seconds of game highlights and 20 seconds of interviews during the 48 hours after any Duck game. Special shows outside a daily sports news report would have received 30 seconds of each.
Although the policy affected all media organizations, the Athletic Department said one specific show caused all the problems: KVAL’s “Inside the PAC” weekend show that wraps up all the Pacific-10 Conference action with highlights and interviews.
ESPN Regional has an exclusive five-year contract to air Duck football, and the station allowed Eugene ABC affiliate KEZI access to footage for its news and weekend sports feature shows. Both companies are owned by the Disney Corporation.
ESPN Regional representatives began complaining to athletic directors last spring that KVAL, a CBS affiliate, had unfair access to Duck games and KVAL’s “Inside the PAC” resembled KEZI’s “The Mike Bellotti Show” too closely. But ESPN Regional Manager Tim Roberts said a judge ruled in March that any policy must cover the entire industry, not just a single station or program, even though ESPN Regional would have been satisfied if KVAL had stopped airing “Inside the PAC.”
“It was an issue of one station, one show,” Roberts said.
But when the proposed policy’s specifics began to spread across the state and the nation, media organizations — print and broadcast alike — called it an issue of a university trying to limit an industry’s First Amendment rights. Bill Johnstone, the CEO of the Oregon Association of Broadcasters, personally told Moos his organization would take the University to court if the school implemented the proposal.
Sen. Rick Metsger, D-Welches, a former Portland sportscaster, said he would seek legislative action if the University’s final draft wasn’t much different than the existing proposal.
In addition, The Radio Television News Directors Association, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sent a letter to University President Dave Frohnmayer voicing their opposition to the plan.
“While we respect the University’s economic interest in promoting University athletics and preserving contract rights granted to its media partners,” the letter read, “your proposed restrictions have gone too far and represent an unconstitutional limitation on the ability of the press to gather and report the news.”
The Oregonian’s editorial page called “the concept so ill-conceived in so many ways that you have to wonder whether University of Oregon officials go off on a retreat each year to dream up new ways to offend people and make themselves look foolish.”
But Assistant Athletic Director Dave Heeke said the concept was simply to uphold the University’s end of a contract.
“We have a disgruntled rights holder in this market,” Heeke said after the July 11 public hearing. “We have a responsibility to protect the rights they hold.”
And University General Counsel Melinda Grier said as long as the school restricts only access and not the content of the footage sportscasters choose to run, the journalists’ First Amendment arguments don’t hold water.
“This is a venue where access can be and is restricted,” Grier said. “What we’re saying is you can choose what to show, but there’s a limit on how much.”
Word first came that Moos would announce a policy that looked different than the original proposal. But on Aug. 8, less than a month after the proposal was introduced to the public, Moos announced that the Athletic Department had killed all plans to introduce a new policy and would continue to allow unlimited use of footage.
Instead, the industry will be in charge of policing itself, although Johnstone said he has made no such promise.

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Timeline of proposed broadcasting policy:
July 11: The Athletic Department held a public hearing and presented the proposed policy. Journalists from across the state attended and voiced opposition to the proposal.
July 23: The Radio Television News Directors Association, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sent a letter to University President Dave Frohnmayer that echoed complaints made at the
public hearing.
July 30: Assistant Athletic Director Dave Williford announced the policy would become official in the next few days, but with major changes from the original proposal.
Aug. 1: Joel DeVore, the attorney for Fisher Broadcasting and KVAL, petitioned the University to postpone releasing the policy at least three weeks so the letters and newspaper editorials against it could be entered into the official public record along with the comments from the July 11 hearing.
Aug. 8: Athletic Director Bill Moos announced the University has dropped all plans to implement a new policy, and broadcasters will still have unlimited access to sports highlights.