COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio High School Athletic Association board of directors has accepted a proposal from OHSAA staff that now allows schools to apply for rights from local media or video production companies to provide video in live from their Friday night football games of the regular season. 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 channel or website or on the Web controlled by the school, leaving the media to broadcast Friday night games only late. . At the time, this rule was added at the request of a majority of OHSAA member schools to protect their home game ticket revenues and have a statewide policy.
While continuing to provide their own live video, a growing number of schools have applied to partner with third-party sources to generate income through copyright and pay-per-view rights to their home football matches. Friday evening due to the decrease in crowd size expected. this fall due to the coronavirus pandemic. Schools are already licensed to do so for all other regular season competitions in any sport and regular season football games that are not played on Fridays.
“We believe that many of our schools will be able to work with partners to broadcast and broadcast their home regular season football games,” said Bob Goldring, Interim Executive Director of OHSAA. “Most of our schools depend on income from their home football games to help fund their sports departments, so this is a way for schools to do so while facing limited ticket sales.”
Spectrum News 1 is the official TV partner of the OHSAA. As the headquarters of the OHSAA, Spectrum will resume its Friday night game of the week and varsity athlete schedule at the start of the fall season.
It should be noted that live video of any OHSAA Post-Season Tournament Contest is still only permitted by the Official OHSAA TV Partner or with the approval of the OHSAA.
As always, the host school controls media access and seating in the press gallery. Due to the pandemic, some schools will limit the number of people in the press gallery.
Section 2 (TV) and Section 4 (Streaming) of the OHSAA Media Rules will be updated to reflect the change for 2020 for Friday night regular season football games. The OHSAA and the board will reassess the regulations ahead of the 2021 season.
