Friday night football live video permission goes to host schools
After years of only being able to broadcast Friday games on a delay basis, the OHSAA is allowing schools to video and show games live this season with the assumption that crowds at games will be limited across the state.
For many years the Ohio High School Athletic Association has not allowed live football games to be shown Friday nights. Because many schools may not have many fans at games due to COVID-19, that rule has changed for 2020, and schools are now being encouraged to seek revenue from partners for live video of Friday night football games.
The OHSAA Board of Directors has accepted a proposal from OHSAA staff that now allows schools to seek rights fees from local media outlets or video-production companies to provide live video of their home regular-season Friday night football games during the 2020 season.
Since the mid-1990s, live video of Friday night regular-season football games has only been permitted by the host school on the school-owned TV station or website or the school-controlled webpage, leaving media to show Friday night games only on delay. At the time, that regulation was added at the request of a majority of OHSAA member schools to protect ticket revenue for their home games and was a statewide policy.
While continuing to provide their own live video, a growing number of schools have asked to partner with third-party sources to generate revenue from rights fees and pay-per-view of their Friday night home football games due to decreased crowd sizes that are expected this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Schools are already permitted to do that for all other regular-season contests in any sport and regular-season football games that are not played on Friday.
“We believe that many of our schools will be able to work with partners to stream and televise their home regular-season football games,” said Bob Goldring, OHSAA interim executive director. “Most of our schools rely on revenue from their home football games to help fund their athletic department, so this is one way that schools can still do that while facing limited ticket sales.”
Spectrum News 1 is the official TV partner of the OHSAA. As the home of the OHSAA, Spectrum will resume its Friday Night Game of the Week and Scholar-Athlete program when the fall season begins.
Of note, live video of any OHSAA postseason tournament contest is still only permitted by the official TV partner of the OHSAA or with OHSAA approval.
As always, the host school controls media access and seating in the press box. Due to the pandemic, some schools will limit the number of people in the press box. For postseason games, host facilities are asked to follow the OHSAA’s press box priority seating guidelines at www.ohsaa.org/Portals/0/Sports/Football/FBMediaPressBoxMemo.pdf.