Utah Joins the SEC in Limiting Real Time Access

University of Utah joins the SEC in limiting live reporting, and of course neither the Utah website or the Mountain West site has posted what can or can not be done.  Rather here is a snippet from a report earlier today which is pretty wide open for interpretation:

Utah announced Monday that it was not going to allow any "instantaneous reports" this season. That means no Twitter, no Facebook and certainly no texting. Now, that doesn't mean that Utah's making media members check their cell phones at the door; it's an honor system.

This does not specify games or if it is just practice.  Have to wonder if this has anything to do with the accidental leak of the Pitt-Utah matchup from Utah's Assistant athletic director for corporate sales and ticket operations Zack Lassiter’s from his twitter feed.  That news was reported here, here, and here well over 36 hours before the official announcement.  Also that twitter post was taken down sometime the same night that word started to get out..

If it is just practice then it is really not a big deal, well unless you are one of the media members who at times call in during practice to a local radio station to report on what is going on, or if there is someone live blogging camp. 

Now if this includes games then things could be tricky, because there are multiple media outlets who live blog and have live chats during the game.  Those are instantaneous reports, but what accounts for instantaneous is there a time frame or is it from once a certain play ends until the next play begins.

Also, what is the difference between a live chat and blog, because a live blog is the accounts from the game by the author, and a live chat is more of a question and answer of what just happened.  Then what is the difference of say me here at the MWC Connection to have a live blog of a game that I am watching on television, who is obviously not a credentialed media at a game or practice.

These rules as the school or league puts it is to a) not allow any misinformation to be released, or the more plausible reason b) is that coaches are freaks and do not want stuff leaked before they make the announcement.  

Not only are the teams giving away a potential competitive advantage with instantaneous updates, but it's also allowing non-verified information to get out into the public realm, which could create a nightmare for the school, the player and the player's family.

The competitive disadvantage is a far reaching reason to disallow 'instantaneous' reports because isn't the reports job to report what they see at practice, also the last statement that "could create a nightmare" is a little over the top.  The only situations that could harm the player or their family is if there is some type of injury, and that info should be released by the staff with the official word.  Even in that scenario sending info in a tweet, blog, text, or radio interview during practice that says a player is injured, is fine in my opinion.

The way technology is today with these reports being published everywhere.  Teams have people search for news on their opponents, and with the internet and on demand either with television or radio makes all this info available to the public.

One would assume that with a practice that is open to the media then all info is verified, if there is something that the coaches do not want revealed they can either discuss these things in a private meeting, or go the BYU route who is closing three practices from the media.

Until there is an official release by University of Utah we can only speculate on the specifics, but I would suspect any official release will be vague to give the University leeway to revoke access from a media member.