Here's a sensible policy: You're a professional golf tour with aspirations toward higher awareness among the general public. You'd seem to have a lot of good things going for you, including several new young stars (Michelle Wie, Morgan Pressel) and many stars who've been around a while (Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb). So what do you do to heighten that public awareness?
You insist that the Associated Press, television stations and local newspapers give up all rights to their images and stories forever.
To get credentials, media outlets must agree to hand over ownership of their photos to the LPGA and only publish or air stories about the event as news stories. Reporters covering the event can only write about the LPGA Tour, and those stories could be used in perpetuity by the LPGA for free.
Naturally, the press objected to this new policy, and so none of the local tv stations had any coverage of the current tournament other than the leader board, and the papers did the same.
I detect a media/marketing consultant's mind at work here. Way to get your event covered for all the wrong reasons, people. Rather than the golf, the press is writing about the Tour's organization and policy. Clever.
Posted by Linkmeister at February 24, 2006 08:39 AM | TrackBack