The TVNewsday article on the NFL's severe restrictions on the use of stadium video on Web sites echoes what I have been hearing for the past couple of years from TV stations and newspapers.

As a former television photographer, I feel a bit betrayed by the restrictive credentialing language. From my perspective, local news coverage was instrumental in the growth of professional and college sports over the decades, culminating in the overwhelming popularity and influence that the leagues exert on society.

In return, the leagues have thanked their local media benefactors by adding credentialing restrictions for the Internet. The leagues have pretty much said, "We don't need you anymore. But, thank you for helping us grow our business."

It's time for local newspapers and broadcasters to acknowledge that the leagues don't necessarily need local affiliates anymore to promote their product. The new reality is that cable and the Internet have changed the game so profoundly that leagues now own the venues to capitalize on their investments by controlling the manner in which its product is published.

The hard-line approach is disappointing when you consider that public money has helped many a sports franchise fund a stadium, purchased unsold tickets, provided property tax breaks and covered operating losses.

The leagues should allow for the reasonable use of video and photos, for news purposes only, throughout the season in print, broadcast and Internet. Don't hold your breath on that one — the leagues know the value of their commercial enterprises. 

Let's remember that from a business perspective, sports is entertainment. The professional leagues play in privately controlled venues, and the players are paid with private money. When you think about it, these restrictions are no different than a concert promoter or Broadway theater producer controlling how images and audio of the performances are used. 

The good news from a local media perspective is that these cumbersome developments actually force TV, radio and newspaper companies to reinvent themselves by adjusting the content mix as they move onto the Internet.

We need to stop mourning the loss of highlights and locker room footage from our Web sites. I don't think we ever explicitly had those publication rights to begin with.

Under the new rules, newspapers can still write about the game and print some photos. TV stations can still broadcast limited game footage and talk over the highlights. And radio can still talk about the games with the fans. 

As for the local sports coverage on online, it's not about repurposing the same sort of content we produced for print and broadcast. It's about creating new, relevant content for an online audience.

At WorldNow, I regularly advise our newspaper, television and radio customers to adjust the focus of their online sports reporting to include coverage from the fan's perspective. 

Take your cameras and microphones to the tailgate parties, pre- and post-game, and do more than cover the food that they are cooking on their portable grills

Hang out with fans in a sports bar or in the fan's homes during the games and capture their reactions and opinions about a particular player, coach, game or play 

Start broadcasting prep-sports and minor league sports in a more meaningful way that goes far beyond capturing highlights, and work to build an audience around these teams

Broadcast or live stream prep games in full, and offer local school districts a cut of the ad revenue to help advance their sports programs

Blog about the teams and give your audiences a mechanism to contribute their thoughts and opinions (the über-fans already have their own blogs with growing audiences)

Hold live video chats with the fans right after the game and offer a video-on-demand version that can be consumed anytime, anywhere.

And, most important, use your print and on-air brands to constantly promote your online sports coverage so the fans know where to go to get this unique content

The bottom line is that content will always be king, regardless of the medium.

Local news outlets need to reinvent themselves by finding new ways to be more creative, more relevant and more engaging with their online sports coverage rather than relying on game highlights, locker room interviews and post-game news conferences. There is nothing unique about that kind of content anymore, and, frankly, it's getting rather boring and clichéd. 

We can still work with the leagues to protect our historic access to the games. But move on and challenge yourself to invent new ways to cover sports locally and independently.

Clayton Thomson is vice president, video technology and development, WorldNow. He can be reached through LinkedIn and via e-mail at cthomson@worldnow.com.