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Can Wisconsin bloggers write about High School sports?

The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association seems to think it can block the state’s newspapers from covering post-season play unless the newspapers pay the athletic association.

The most interesting bit is this: “The WIAA is asking a Portage County judge to rule that the organization has the right to “control the transmission, Internet stream, photo, image, film, videotape, audiotape, writing, drawing or other depiction or description” of high school games.”

The WIAA is claiming that even writing about the game violates their intellectual property rights. How crazy is that? And since newspapers and bloggers depend on the same First Amendment protections to cover whatever the newspaper or blogger decides is “news,” if the newspapers lose this fight, then bloggers may find themselves banned from writing about local high school sports.

Somebody needs to kick these WIAA folks in the rear. The WIAA would not exist without the participation and dues of public schools. No public schools — no WIAA. In fact, the majority of the leadership of the WIAA is made up of public school employees along with a representative of the state school boards.

In effect, what you have here is a bunch of local governments, declaring themselves an independent corporation and then suing newspapers to stop them from covering the activities sponsored by the local governments. On what planet does that make sense?

Is this going on in other states?