Some teams place limits on the things reporters at practice can do. In Deion Sanders’s fourth season at Colorado, the restrictions have been taken to the extreme.
Via David Ubben of The Athletic, open practices by the Buffaloes came with significant strings attached.
In an email distributed to reporters (Tony Farmer posted the full thing), reporters were told that there could be no reporting from the practice.
“Nothing observed at practice may be reported, published, posted, broadcast or otherwise shared in any form, on any platform, at any time,” Colorado said in the email. “If you are uncertain whether something is reportable, the answer is that it is not.”
Any fans and media attending the practice were required to surrender their phones.
“Violations of these guidelines may result in removal from the facility, revocation of credentials and restriction of future access for the individual and the outlet, consistent with CU Athletics media policies,” the email explained.
Of course, most college practices are closed. Any access is better than none.
The risk, however, is that Colorado may decide to closely scrutinize whether anything observed at the open practice trickles into future reporting on the team. And they could revoke credentials based on the mistaken belief that the reporters defied the directive to not report on the things they saw at the open practice.
