The Dallas Mavericks and Bloggers

I've been following Mark Cuban's blog. Many newspapers now have a website and a blog. These newspapers were sending reporters/bloggers to the Dallas Mavericks' locker room.

Mark Cuban started a controversy by banning these bloggers from his locker room. His reasoning was "Blogs written by mainstream newspapers aren't of a higher quality than dedicated fan blogs. If I allow newspapers to send bloggers to my locker room, then to be fair, I should allow *ALL* bloggers in my locker room. That is impractical, so my policy is that all locker room bloggers are banned, whether they're independent or writing for a big newspaper."

By giving big newspapers free access to his locker room, Mark Cuban is effectively subsidizing big newspapers. He benefits in the form of free advertising. However, the newspapers benefit more, because they're getting access to information/news for free. If the newspapers were losing money on the deal, they wouldn't be sending reporters.

How can Mark Cuban fairly decide who gets to be a locker room reporter/blogger?

The fairest solution is to auction off locker room passes. It would be worth an experiment to do it once, just as a publicity stunt.