In the absence of a baseball team, I’m going to turn this into a little bit of a thing this summer, because I’m genuinely intrigued by how the battle over the use of live-streaming apps, like Periscope and Meerkat, at sporting events (or in front of TVs showing sporting events) will play out.

Stephanie Wei, a golf reporter, had her credential pulled by the PGA… after she live-streamed a practice round last Monday. Deadspin’s Samir Kalaf argues in her favor:

The tour is well within its rights to protect its televised product, but no one was watching a practice round on TV, and if they were watching Wei’s stream, at least they were paying attention to the tournament, and the sport. Reporters posting trivial bits of golf on mobile devices and the internet aren’t taking money out of the PGA’s pocket. It’s not surprising that the PGA, a stuffy league for a stuffy sport, is being so truculent over something as inconsequential as this, but that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.

100% agree. Same thing I said about Major League Baseball after an apparently incorrect report said they were going to block live-streaming at games.

There’s a legit argument in some cases. I streamed the entrances to Mayweather-Pacquiao the other night, but I wasn’t about to show a minute of a fight that cost $100 to rent (a bunch of other people did). My guess was that HBO-Showtime and, specifically, Mayweather’s goofy-ass team would’ve been all over that. Re-broadcasting the fight would’ve been providing a legitimate alternative to watching (and paying for!) the broadcast, especially for something as short as a boxing match. Live-streaming from a game, or, more laughably, golf practice round, at this point, does nothing to step on the toes of the broadcast and, in most cases, only helps promote the event further.

But man, if you thought leagues were overzealous in removing recorded videos from YouTube, wait until Periscope and Meerkat streaming quality gets even better (it will) and see how much they freak out over its use… even though the best HD camera phone broadcast will rarely supplant, you know, an actual broadcast.