SEC Policy Could Ultimately Ban Your Mobile Phone From Stadiums

You better think twice before you try to bring your mobile phone to an SEC (South Eastern Conference) football game this year! The way the policy is shaping up, we might be looking at a 100% ban on all social media from college football stadiums.

If you don't leave your mobile phones at home, and you start using Twitter, uploading photos and videos to Facebook, and uploading videos to YouTube, then according to the SEC you just might be breaking the law.

According to sources,

Earlier this month, the conference informed its schools of the new policy, which reads: “Ticketed fans can’t “produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the Event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event.”

This policy move by the SEC doesn't surprising considering that ESPN and NBC are collectively paying $3 billion dollars for television rights to the 12 school's football games.

And this type of move isn't the first time social networking has been banned from a sporting event. The US Open banned all mobile phones and data devices from entering the facility, and the result was people actually going through withdrawals from not having their Blackberry!

Also, back in 2007, the British Open banned all mobile phones. However, I'm thinking in this case it was more for the disruptive ringing of the phone rather than people sending updates to Twitter since it was pretty much unknown in 2007.

I can see the US Open having success with this policy because it's a once a year event, and the fan base that actually show up for the event is probably not too consistent one year to the next.

The SEC implementing this ban, however, might create more of a backlash from disgruntled fans! In a lot of cases, these are the same fans that are biggest donors to the 12 SEC sport's programs.

This might be a case where the SEC's best friends are soon to become their fiercest enemies!

How would you feel if you were not allowed to bring your mobile phones into the football stadiums this year?