The University has dropped all plans to institute a new policy that would have restricted how long television news broadcasters could air footage of Duck football games.
Athletic Director Bill Moos announced Wednesday that after almost a month of public feedback and angry, critical letters from media groups nationwide, the school will keep its “open access” game day policy for television journalists.
Instead of the University implementing a policy, Moos said the industry will take responsibility and police itself. But Bill Johnstone, the CEO of the Oregon Association of Broadcasters, said his group has no plans to enact specific rules or guidelines on when highlights can be aired and for how long.
Moos said he and other members of the Athletic Department have been leaning toward dropping the policy for the past week, a decision sparked in part by the cries of First Amendment infringement from media organizations ranging from The Oregonian’s editorial board to the Society of Professional Journalists.
“It is in our best interest to go back to the original policy,” he said during a press conference call. “I don’t feel we had the arrogance to take on First Amendment rights.”
But he added that the attention created by the University’s high ranking in a number of national preseason football polls and Duck quarterback Joey Harrington’s presence on the covers of Sports Illustrated and ESPN Magazine played a major role in the final decision.
“This is a year of all years that we want the most exposure of Duck sports,” Moos said.
The issue of limiting coverage grew from a year-long dispute between ESPN Regional Sports, which allows footage to be aired on KEZI, Eugene’s ABC affiliate, and the CBS affiliate KVAL, which airs Duck football game footage on its “Inside the PAC” show.
Both ESPN and ABC are owned by the Disney Corporation.
ESPN Regional claimed “Inside the Pac” violated the rights of its five-year deal with the University, a contract KVAL held until the 1999-2000 school year.
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 report during news broadcasts would have received 30 seconds of each.
Tim Roberts, the regional manager for ESPN, said policy implementation became difficult because the University had to make a broad policy for all television media, not one that restricted only KVAL or only “Inside the PAC.”
Roberts said if ESPN believes KVAL’s show continues to step over the boundaries of ESPN’s contract with the University during this fall’s football season, the sports network will take the issue to KVAL, not the school.
KVAL General Manager Dave Weinkauf said in a released statement that Moos’ decision correctly protects the station’s First Amendment rights, and KVAL will allow ESPN and KEZI to gain additional access to coaches and players for their highlights.
“KVAL recognizes the need to grant that accommodation to the rights holder,” Weinkauf said in a released statement. “That’s what we received in the nine years we worked with [the University of] Oregon, and that’s certainly what the current rights holder should receive.”
Moos said that like all elements of the sports program, the athletic directors will evaluate media access at the end of the year, but the open policy will stand for the rest of this school year.
“This is the direction we’re going for this year,” he said. “The last thing we want to do is deprive our fans of all the Oregon Ducks they want.”