Some Companies Banning CBS SportsLine Access During Tourney

Full-Court Trap: Some Companies Limiting Access To CBS SportsLine.com

With CBS’ “March Madness On Demand” offering NCAA men’s college basketball games for free online this year, “bosses around the country are taking note and employing Internet filtering software to limit employee access,” according to CNBC’s Steve Liesman. Liesman: “March Madness, it turns out, is a big and measurable productivity loser in a nation that, ironically, is obsessed with productivity.” Websense VP & Chief Counsel Michael Newman, whose company provides Web filtering and security services, said, “The idea really is to make sure that employees are productive when they’re at the office. I think everybody would agree that employees shouldn’t come to the office [and] spend all day watching basketball games” (“On The Money,” 3/15). In a front-page story in today’s WASHINGTON POST, Thomas Heath reports Corporate Executive Board (CEB), a management research firm, “has decided to disable access” to “March Madness On Demand.” CEB said that the reason for the move is to “avoid straining the corporate computer system,” but Chief Research Officer Derek van Bever said, “It’s also a business focus issue. Is there any good reason to run this risk [of lost worker productivity]? And the answer is no.” Heath writes there is “growing recognition that technology is allowing March Madness to creep further into the workplace.” CBS SportsLine.com spokesperson Alex Riethmiller “declined to voice an opinion about the efforts by some companies to limit access” to the site (WASHINGTON POST, 3/16).

“WATERSHED EVENT”: Pilson Communications President Neal Pilson called CBS’ free streaming of tournament games “a watershed event. There have been a lot of events available on a subscription basis, priced modestly, but this is the first time that a significant national event –- which is also covered on [TV] –- is being made available free, with the revenue stream coming from advertisers.” Pilson added that, in the future, events such as the Olympics and U.S. Open Tennis Championship “could be streamed using an advertising model rather than subscriptions.” But Carmel Group President Sean Badding said, “We’re still in Phase 1 of broadband video, and we’re not likely to see any near-term impact on cable or satellite” (MARKETWATCH.com, 3/16).

SALES: CBS Digital Media President Larry Kramer said that the ad sales for the Webcasts have “already exceeded subscription sales from last year,” when about 25,000 consumers paid $19.95 for CBS’ streaming of NCAA tournament games on CSTV.com. MARKETWATCH’s Bambi Francisco noted last year’s money from subscriptions went to CSTV, which has since been purchased by CBS, “but it wasn’t enough to cover the flat fee paid to CBS for the rights.” Kramer said this year, “We’re making money. ... By and large, we covered our costs” (MARKETWATCH.com, 3/15).

LITTLEPAGE TURNER: In Pittsburgh, Shelly Anderson notes that after CBS’ Billy Packer and Jim Nantz criticized the work of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament selection committee on the net’s Selection Show last Sunday, Univ. of Virginia AD and committee chair Craig Littlepage suggested that they “should be more respectful of the NCAA in light of the CBS-NCAA contract.” Littlepage “apparently interprets that deal as something cozier than it should be. CBS is paying a lot of money to televise the games, not to crawl into bed with the NCAA and become an extension of its [PR] department” (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, 3/16). In Richmond, Jerry Lindquist adds, “To even allow a perception the network should get in lockstep with the NCAA committee was an error in judgment. ... To suggest Packer and Nantz should take it easy on the chairman, whoever he might be, is out of line” (RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH, 3/16).