Rutgers doesn't have to share football game video with public, court rules
NEW BRUNSWICK - All John Caroff wanted was to show his 13-year-old daughter, a budding football strategist, the video of the Rutgers-Penn State football game on Dec. 5, 2020.
The Cedar Knolls resident wanted to show his daughter and his family the “all-22” video of the game so they could analyze Rutgers’ 14th straight loss to Penn State.
The all-22 video captures the action from two cameras – one at the 50-yard line with a wide-angle lens to include all 22 players on the field and another behind the end zone focusing just on the line formation for each play.
Caroff believed that by studying the video, his daughter would “advance her qualifications should she seek future employment with a college football staff or as part of the media covering college football.”
So Caroff sent Rutgers, a public university, an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request on Jan. 22, 2021 asking for the all-22 video.
But Rutgers denied the request because the video is non-public proprietary information, available only to coaches and players and other Big Ten Conference teams on a reciprocal basis.
Caroff then went to Superior Court in Middlesex County where Judge Alberto Rivas agreed with Rutgers.
Caroff then appealed Rivas’ ruling to a higher court and this week a state appellate court agreed with Rivas denying the video to Caroff.
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"We believe this is the correct outcome," said Dory Devlin, assistant vice president, university news and media relations at Rutgers. "The court's ruling speaks for itself."
In its decision, the state appellate court agreed with Rivas, saying that the public release of the video would have a "negative impact" on Rutgers' relationship with other Big Ten teams because releasing the video would also mean that all videos the university received from other Big Ten teams would also be public.
"How many schools would be willing to exchange all-22 videos with Rutgers if by doing so they would be placing their own all-22 videos in the public domain?" the court wrote in its 18-page ruling.
If Rutgers were required to release the video under OPRA, the court ruled, any offer by Rutgers to share video with Big Ten teams or non-conference opponents would have "no value" because the other teams could use OPRA to obtain the video and be under no obligation to offer videos in return.
Rutgers would then have to incur the additional cost of more scouting efforts, the court wrote, placing the university "at a competitive disadvantage."
OPRA also exempts from disclosure information that "would give an advantage to competitors or bidders."
Email: mdeak@mycentraljersey.com
Mike Deak is a reporter for mycentraljersey.com. To get unlimited access to his articles on Somerset and Hunterdon counties, please subscribe or activate your digital account
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Rutgers football doesn't have to share game film with public
