The NFL Hates You

You know what's annoying? A lot of things. But you know what's particularly annoying to me right now?

Sports leagues.

They hate me. They hate you. They hate everybody.

Especially when it comes to video.

If I find a video up on YouTube of something that happened in a baseball game and I post it here, by the time most of you go to watch it, MLB will have taken it down.

It's just how they roll over there at MLB Headquarters.

Apparently, the NFL caught wind of it, and they liked what they heard, though they won't be taking it to the extreme that baseball does.

Thanks to a new NFL policy, something will soon be in short supply on news-media Web sites: video of almost anything related to the NFL or its players.

In a move designed to protect the Internet operations of its 32 teams, the pro football league has told news organizations that it will no longer permit them to carry unlimited online video clips of players, coaches or other officials, including video that the news organizations gather themselves on a team's premises. News organizations can post no more than 45 seconds per day of video shot at a team's facilities, including news conferences, interviews and practice-field reports.

Of course, this isn't just meant for sports blogs like this one. They're going after the "real" sites too, like the Washington Post where this article was found.

Why is the NFL is doing this? Cuz now, if a fan wants to find any video, say highlights of a game or a press conference, he or she will have to go to that team's official site, which means more hits for teams, and with more hits comes the granddaddy of them all...money.

"There are a number of reasons for [barring videographers], but it's basically a content issue," said Redskins spokesman Chris Helein. "I won't hide . . . the fact that the NFL and everything that surrounds it is valuable content."

Because the billion dollars a year the league makes just isn't quite enough to keep dinner on the table.

So I hope you enjoyed those Devin Hester compilations we posted last season off of YouTube, because you won't be seeing them again.

No, instead they're all bound to look a lot like this following clip.



That's Houston Chronicle sports columnist John McLain.

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