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Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Sports Law - "NCAA social networking regulations provide challenge for MU compliance department"
From the Columbia Mo Missourian, a story dated July 16th by David Conway that begins:
COLUMBIA – Social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter have made student athletes more accessible than ever.The long story includes a link to the 42-page Notice of Allegations, in addition to a number of other interesting links.The 140-character limit on Twitter might not necessarily encourage a meaningful discourse, but things as simple as an athlete checking in while on vacation or a fan telling a recruit why he should commit to his favorite school can still make an impact.
Increasingly, that impact can be problematic. From players to coaches to fans, 140 characters is often all that's necessary to catch the watchful eye of the NCAA.
On July 21, the University of North Carolina received a Notice of Allegations from the NCAA detailing a litany of violations committed by their athletics programs. Among them was the failure to “adequately and consistently monitor social networking activity” by student athletes that should have caused the school to discover other violations sooner than they did.
The implication seen by many in the NCAA's ruling – that athletic departments should be going through the entirety of their student athletes' social networking pages for potential violations – is troublesome for officials like Mitzi Clayton, MU's assistant athletics director for compliance. Clayton said she views such rigorous monitoring as an unattainable goal.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 19, 2011 10:58 AM
Posted to General Law Related