EDITOR'S NOTE: Following is a memo sent from SEC Associate Commissioner Charles Bloom to the NCAA Management Council as it prepares to vote on media guide restrictions.
TO: Members of NCAA Management Council
FROM: Charles Bloom, Associate Commissioner, Southeastern Conference
RE: NCAA Proposals 2003-32
DATE: March 8, 2005
The NCAA Management Council currently has Proposal 2003-32 out for comment. Proposal 2003-32, if passed, would limit the size of media guides to 200 pages.
The Southeastern Conference has offered an amendment to this legislation that would increase the page total to 248. I am hopeful that within the bounds of this letter, the case will be made to accept this amendment when it comes for a vote in your next meeting.
Sports Information Directors at your institutions are charged with the promotion of the institution's intercollegiate athletics programs to the media. The printed media guide is one of the most important assets an SID has to work with. The printed media guide sends a positive message to anyone reading it about the direction and goals of the program.
The importance of media in today's society cannot be overstated. The influx of all-news and all-sports channels on television and radio as well as newspapers and magazines have added to this culture.
Servicing these media outlets, along with the media guide's importance in recruiting, has made these brochures as large as they are, in both size and magnitude.
I believe many would agree that media guides, mostly in football and basketball, have gotten too large. Members of the media are now complaining about the size and weights of these brochures. The Management Council has taken steps to ensure that these brochures will continue to useful for the media.
However, after researching, we believe that the 200 page limit does not adequately allow for institutions, some who have been participating in football or basketball for more than 100 years, enough space to relay its history and tell its story.
Using the 2004 football media guides of the 12 SEC institutions as a barometer, the average number of pages of what is considered the most important items in a guide - student-athlete biographies, coaching staff biographies and the records section - is 168 total pages.
The average number of pages among the 12 SEC institutional media guides in 2004 was 319. Of the 319 pages, 101 pages were for historical and records data, 22 were for the coaching and athletics administration staff and 45 pages were for the student-athlete biographies. Five of the 12 SEC institutional football media guides had 175 or more pages for these three sections of its media guides.
If the 200 page limit remains in effect, based on the research above, many institutions would have an average of only 32 pages remaining to include such items as opponent's information, athletic department and university leadership, university and city history and information, as well as rosters, depth charts and a season outlook.
This does not even include a recruiting section that has been incorporated in media guides for the several years that has taken up a large part of these brochures.
The SEC feels that 248 pages provides space for content that would allow for the league’s SIDs to better deliver the information that is needed by the media and needed to help promote the university.
Each of us serves you in an effort to effectively promote your athletics department. Please let us know if you have any further questions about our opinions on these proposals and how they could affect intercollegiate athletics.
CHARLES R. BLOOM
Associate Commissioner
Southeastern Conference
2201 Richard Arrington Blvd. North
Birmingham, AL 35203
(205) 458-3010 - Office
(205) 458-3030 - Fax
cbloom@sec.org