Totally agree Isaac. This appears to be very negative even though the intent may not have been.
Give the media great seats, ply them with nourishment and make it a great experience. Far more likely to get them back and keep them writing about basketball.

Does seem like overkill and a lot of negativity.
But perhaps they have realised how many people have rorted the media pass situation in the past.

Perhaps approaching all the major newspapers and local papers, tv stations relevant to local teams and issuing their basketball specific (if they have one) or general sports writer/reporter a media pass and a invitation to the first game in their respective cities, have someone from within the home team show them around and yes feed them.

Basketball goes after families and grassroots and this and that, but there are a lot of people coming into basketball later in their lives. Regular poster EC is a classic example - AFAIK didn't grow to love watching the game as a kid or through her family, but was introduced as an adult and now follows it keenly enough to read and post on a basketball forum.

Best way to win people over is to get them at the actual games (just make it a Crocs, Cats or 36ers game rather than something like the Spirit last year). If you judged the NBL just on the press releases or lack of season launch, you'd be missing out.

I had a rep from a club ask me accusingly if I was actually working when I turned up once with my media pass. In the two weeks prior to that I had three of their clubs articles/pictures on the front page of the fiba website which gets millions of hits per month - with their (international) sponsor in clear view on two of those occasions. That's gratitude!

DJ, but really, what's the threat? A few freeloaders on the baseline with a camera? More people there, the better it looks.

Your idea about proactively creating accounts/accreditation and providing details to specific people and companies is good though. They can't sit back and expect doubting writers to go there and fill in a long form just for the honour of covering the game.

As I said recently, I think to Matt McQuade or Joel from the Hawks, if the concern is over freeloaders from dodgy blogs, keep sharing info with them and require redistribution rights or contribution of photos and text for league/club use. Make sure you get something in return, but in a better way than accusing them (as in Paul's example).

The restriction on media access does sound a bit rough but I would like to cut BA a bit of slack here.

These passes that everyone is talking about will get you into any NBL or WNBL game Australia wide (including playoffs) so if I was running the league I would want to restrict access as much as I could and know exactly who was getting them.

In my experience, each clubs also have their own media passes that are only just for their own stadiums and own games which can also be applied for. Surely the 'smaller' operators can apply to their local media manager for access to their local teams.

These terms seem pretty standard for the NBL. I have held accreditation for the past couple of seasons and its just general advice (if you have ever seen an NBA media pass, this is NOTHING in comparison).

In regards to what people have said about it being good publicity and they should get media in and ply them with food and drink and make sure they have a good time, I think you are probably right. Media get treated a little like second class citizens, you may get free entry, but no seat, no food, no drinks and generally get made to feel like you are in the way most of the time. Priority is given to sponsors who act like they own the world, but I guess at the end of the day they help pay the bills.

The biggest thing for media people is who they deal with at the club. If that person is courteous it makes a huge difference. Ed Wyatt from the Dragons was always brilliant in arranging seating, acess to players etc he always went the extra mile.

I had media accreditation for a couple of Knicks games last season and its really interesting. The NBA and the clubs love having you there, the security hates it, but I guess they are just doing their job. But the amount of times I got tapped on the shoulder and asked for my pass was ridiculous.

I have always got drinks and a little bit of food when working at Tigers games. No complaints there.

From memory 36ers, Crocs and some others required media to organise additional accreditation to get entry.

Hawks also offer Media Pass for some who request one - Don't think you're not working tomorrow night McQuade :P - and will be setting out name cards on the bench for those who inform the club of their attendance.

In the past Hawks / Kings / Pigs were pretty much turn up with a pass and get in no questions - this was definitely abused.

Having said that, i've heard on the grapevine that some ozhoops writers have scored a media pass... isn't that just a forum?

Surely the likes of JR, Mat McQuade and other prominnent bloggers should be offered one, afterall a lot of their content is deeper and more accurate than the results & press release driven content on NBL.com.au

It'd be great to see the league acknowledge/promote these contributors rather than push them away - What would happen if basketball junkies such as McQuade, statsman Mark Slocombe, Bloggers like JR walk away? Thats a lot of NBL content thats gone.

Can't really talk for other clubs but i know myself and Isaac for Sixers go above and beyond what we'd do for a normal web client simply due to being dedicated fans.

Even when i was running an unofficial Hawks site, the club was helpful in providing images/logos etc that led to me getting the main site (only took Chuck leaving Hawks for NBL for me to get it, despite years of nagging) - There is a spot for these unofficial sites, its free publicity surely.

NBL should have links on their site to a few of these NBL Blogs, if they overstep the line at any time its a 2second process to take down a link. I don't see how it could harm the league.

Is this bad for NBL? http://linky.com.au/zkscy

For the second part of my essay :P

Some games there's half a dozen photographers at the game sitting baseline: Don't know who/where most are from or where to access their photos -

It'd be great if these photographers could (like the 6ers photogs do) get on sites like this, ozhoops, JR etc and promote their galleries.. this can only be good for the sport.

One photo (generally Getty Images) goes on NBL.com.au (sometimes) and its rare to see the others used with any NBL related news/promotion etc so i can see why NBL wants to crack down on this area.

I roam around trying to get photos for use on Hawks site (with a full gallery on my site).

From experience I shoot around 500-1000 photos a game of which i usually put up a gallery of about 30-50. If others are taking even close to that we're talking at least a couple hundred usable photos out there that we're not seeing/using.

Yes photogs should get credit/payment but if nobody can see them, nobody can purchase them.

It's late, i've lost my train of thought..... error

The NBL is not in a position where they can really do things a standard way and expect better results. It'd be easy to hide T&C like that at the bottom, and put in a friendlier introduction.