Illinois High School Football: IHSA Wrong For Shutting Down Internet Broadcasts

 

As the quarterfinals for high school football get underway Friday night, the Illinois High School Association has pulled a move that will impact fans that can’t get out to games as much as they want and watch a lot online. It was announced by the Northwest Herald on Thursday night that the IHSA won’t allow the newspaper to webcast Saturday’s Marian Central-Montini matchup but will be allowed to do the Crystal Lake Central/Cary-Grove game under protest from the paper. The IHSA is imposing broadcast fees for postseason games broadcast live online.

It is obvious over the past few years that high school football online has exploded with sites like iHigh.com and HighSchoolCube.com broadcasting multiple games each week from throughout Illinois along with other sites. It is just wrong for the IHSA to jump in now with the quarterfinals here and not after the season to go after broadcast fees for these games. The worst part is that the policy was changed just this last Saturday in an e-mail to athletic directors.

I will admit that right now, I broadcast games on McHenryCountySports.com for the Northwest Herald for five years from 2006-2010 and never once had the IHSA bother with me or the newspaper about any game we did during the playoffs from first round games all the way to the semifinals. It is an absolute joke that the IHSA has decided to step in right now as the playoffs get near their conclusion to decide that this is the time to go after internet broadcasting. It is obvious that the IHSA wants more money and they have now decided to change the rules in the middle of the game.