[Today, we're starting a four-part series by our friend Justin Rice on how the media tables are turning in the world of sports, where the subjects of coverage are becoming the creators of coverage — and what implications those shifts have for the rest of the news business. —Josh]

Thirty-eight days after Major League Baseball launched its own cable channel, MLB Network, in January, the new station found itself covering one of the sport’s biggest stories in years: the news in the baseball world that Yankee slugger Alex Rodriquez had tested positive for steroids in 2003. MLB brass boasted that the coverage — praised by many — was evidence of their ability to cover all the bases of baseball news, whether good, bad, or ugly. The network was praised again last month for jumping on the story that Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez was suspended 50 games for taking a banned substance.

We’ll spend the next three days looking at the broader implications of what happens when media power shifts toward the institutions journalists cover. Journalists are still adjusting to “the people formerly known as the audience” and their new publishing power; what about the people formerly known as our subjects? What happens when the people and organizations we cover also cover themselves? Are they our sources, competitors or some sort of hybrid? In many cases our sources and subjects have better access to the readers and viewers than news organizations do — not to mention the ability to put artificial limits on reporters’ access or coverage. They also have the same, if not better, technology we consider tools of our ever-changing trade.

This disintermediation of media isn’t limited to the sports world. We all know about candidate Obama using his own web site to connect directly with voters and citizens. Government agencies have launched their own “news services” to get around their traditional path to citizens, newspapers and TV stations. The rich and powerful can now use social networking tools to speak directly to their desired audience; when Shaquille O’Neal was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers last week, he did most of his talking about the deal via Twitter, not via a reporter.

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[This is part two of our series on the changing relationships between sports leagues and news organizations. See the whole series here. —Josh]

Before diving any deeper into the growing power of sports leagues over how news organizations do their work, it’s important to trace the legal path that got us to this point. A few landmark cases have played a big role in determining what kinds of influence can be wielded over your local sports section.

In 1997, the NBA unsuccessfully sued Motorola (National Basketball Association v. Motorola, Inc.) for infringing on its exclusive rights to the broadcasts of games by electronically providing customers with in-game updates. The court ultimately found that the statistics of a game are un-copyrightable facts. In other words, nobody can claim ownership to the fact that a LeBron James slam dunk produced two points or that three Ray Allen three-pointers are worth nine points; that information exists entirely in the public realm, available for everyone’s use.

The flap began when Motorola marketed and manufactured a pager called SportsTrax. The device supplied customers with real-time information about NBA games, including the score, who had the ball, and how much time remained in the contest. The service relied on reporters watching the game and keying stats into a computer. The NBA argued the service infringed on the sale of exclusive broadcast rights, which can be copyrighted because creative capital is expended in the broadcast’s production. The transmitted sounds, images, and graphics are a copyrightable expression of the so-called “facts of the game” or “underlying game.” Legally speaking, however, the court said sports events themselved “are not ‘authored’ in any common sense of the word.”

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With no live programming in the morning, MLB Network had to scramble to assemble its crew after the bombshell broke Feb. 7: Sports Illustrated’s Selena Roberts and David Epstein were reporting that Alex Rodriguez had tested positive for steroids in 2003 as a member of the Texas Rangers. But within a few hours, MLB Network had rolled out its stable of talking heads to interview slews of former players and general managers about the newest scandal to rock baseball.

“By 2 p.m., decorated broadcast veteran Bob Costas was interviewing Roberts in studio,” The Washington Times’ Tim Lemke wrote a few days later, praising the network for going “a long way toward establishing itself as a credible source of news” by not dodging the A-Rod scandal.

MLB Network’s A-Rod coverage was heralded by the Los Angeles Times and Street & Smith’s Sports Business Daily, which called MLB Network “no house organ” — a sentiment the pioneering sports blogger Will Leitch made where he wrote, “If the MLB Network ends up being a success, Saturday’s breaking-news coverage of A-Rod will be its Hugh Grant on Leno moment.”

But it’s worth noting that MLB Network’s coverage was being praised primarily for not choosing to ignore (or spin) the biggest baseball news of the year. Simply ignoring a story that huge would have been suicidal. As MLB Network spokesman Matt Bourne told me: “If certain things are not discussed that’s not going to pass the smell test with fans.” The question that remains unanswered is, in a world where leagues are increasingly creating their own media outlets, is it possible to imagine a story like A-Rod’s being broken by MLB Network — or, in other sports, by the NFL Network or NBA TV? If league-owned networks continue to grow in prominence, how will that impact the way sports are covered?

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In June 2007, John McClain, who covers the NFL’s Houston Texans for the Houston Chronicle, was getting tired of a league rule that limited the Chronicle to posting no more than 45 seconds of team video on its web site every day. So he and his colleague Anna-Megan Raley decided it was time for a tongue-in-cheek protest. They shot the video you see above, in which they interview several Texans players and officials while racing against the clock to stay within the NFL’s rules — yelling “time” and scampering off to the next interviewee whenever someone took too long to answer a question.

Protests like McClain’s — along with the lobbying of news organizations and associations — got the 45-second limit expanded to 90 seconds a year later. But many journalists still find it grating that the subject of coverage can dictate how it can be covered. (Can you imagine a mayor trying to dictate similar terms to a city hall reporter?) And as we’ve seen, teams and leagues are increasingly using the lever of access to dictate what kinds of coverage news organizations can provide.

What lessons can be learned from the battles sports journalists have fought with leagues that want to limit digital rights? We asked a few people who have been on the front lines, and here’s what they told us. Keep reading »