by ANDREW DREISCHARF The Independent
Two recent bits of news caught my eye in the past month and I don’t like either: the Illinois High School Association opposing Illinois House Bill 4582 and the Chicago Cubs deciding to auction off their new seats during the 2008 season instead of selling them.
One word comes to mind: greed. One question comes to mind: where does it end?
Currently there are counter suits between the Illinois Press Association and the IHSA over the IHSA’s partnering with a photography company from Wisconsin which has exclusive rights to photographs from IHSA state level events. In turn, the IHSA is barring any publication from taking its own photos at these events and holding the rights. Photos taken at a public event no longer belong to those that take them. It’s wrong. I find it hard to believe that the IHSA would provide more high quality school coverage than a local publication can.
“I don’t understand how you can place ownership on a photograph,” said Woodstock High School Principal Corey Tafoya.
Any reporter or photographer entering an IHSA state-level event must sign an agreement that any photos taken at the event don’t belong to the person who took the photos, and that they can only be used once. That is a clear violation of the First Amendment, something the bill would address.
But recently, the IHSA sent a memo to high schools in the state telling the schools to uphold this policy.
“This hurts the IHSA more than it helps them. The small town publications really help the schools, and the photos are needed to illustrate the action,” said Tafoya. “It’s really important for the hometown papers to keep doing what they do.”
It’s not fair to the people who read smaller publications and the athletes those publications benefit. Pictures help to tell those stories by capturing both emotion and action. Many people, especially in smaller towns like Woodstock, depend on smaller publications to receive their local sports news. The IHSA is trying to change that.
“In the end, I think it will fall,” said Tafoya. “It doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t know how they can do it.”
The proposed bill doesn’t say that the IHSA or a school can’t partner with a specific company to have official photos; it just says that pictures can’t be owned. The IHSA’s response is that they aren’t restricting publications from reporting the news. However, without photographs, it does affect it greatly. It diminishes the story being told.
Communities appreciate the local coverage residents get. When a team does well, no longer can photos be re-used to commemorate a season or great accomplishment. Instead, a parent, athlete, school or student must contact the IHSA for a photograph. Their options, selections and quality is limited. The IHSA also seems to believe small publications are getting rich off the photos they take. It’s simply not the case.
The other thing that upsets me about the whole thing is that the company the IHSA has partnered with is from Wisconsin. I have nothing against Wisconsin. It’s a fine state. What I do have against it, though, is hiring an out-of- state company to do something that could easily be done at home.
What’s next? Broadcasting rights, schools selling their own team logo apparel to raise money for the school? Where does it end?
The IHSA is trying to own sports. This is not professional sports or even college athletics. This is high school sports, which are still pure and not about making money. That’s exactly what the IHSA is trying to do: make money.
The other thing on my mind is the recent renovation that took place to fix the field at Wrigley Field in Chicago. I have nothing against the renovation, and I welcome it. Anything that improves the ballpark is wonderful. I don’t have a problem with 70 new seats that were added for this coming season either.
What I do have a problem with is how those seats will be obtained. These 70 new seats will be up for auction on a game-to-game basis. No season ticket sales and no individual game sales will be offered.
Sure, some of the money made might go back into the team, but it all won’t. If the money being made off these auctions were for charity, this would be a moot point. Simply put, the Cubs have found a way to make more money off their fan base, which includes me.
My question to this practice is also: where does it end?
What’s stopping the Cubs or any team that has success at auctioning off 70 seats at 81 home games from expanding the practice? What’s stopping them from now auctioning off the first three rows of the bleachers or the first two rows of every section? It’s greedy and not needed.
As if professional sports already hadn’t become enough of a cash cow, between the escalating cost of a ticket, and everything else at a stadium that is marked up, it’s becoming nearly impossible for fans of the game to enjoy it in person.
The old day trip with the family to the ballpark is now reaching the cost of a small vacation. It all seems about making money in the current sports world. No one cares about the people who care about the game. They just care about making more money.
We see it over and over again. Owners will cut corners to save a buck. They don’t care if the team is bad. The fans will keep coming. It’s wrong and sets a bad precedent.
If this practice continues, what’s to stop a college or even a high school from auctioning off the first five rows of stands for a football game? The cost of going to any event is high enough as it is. Why must the bottom line for ownership keep increasing when the product given isn’t? Enough is enough.
Where does it end?
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