Mlive: Letting parents cost their kids scholarships

I'm doubting many old-school sports editors got "metrics" whispered into their ears.

 

It doesn't sound like M-Live is never going to write prep gamers for the regular season, just nixing the roundups. I would be shocked if the property wasn't at football games on Fridays and other big events.

 

Doesn't all of this basically depend on location? I mean, if you're in Ann Arbor, shifting resources from preps to Michigan is probably always a good idea. In San Francisco, attention to preps is basically a waste of time. Even in some D-I towns, it kind of depends the quality and interest in teams vs. preps.

I've seen areas where they get pissy when you don't staff the home games of local historical basketball power, but no one reads them unless the team is good (or as good as its power days). I've been in a place where one smaller sport crushed it in web hits and interest, even though it couldn't match the attendance of football.

 

I wish someone could do a really definitive study on high school sports attendance around America. On the whole, it can't be very high, and I suspect that even the towns that claim huge attendance figures, the numbers are greatly exaggerated.

Then there's the matter of news coverage, which has to draw even less interest. I take my son to high school football games in town. There's hardly any fans, though, and I only occasionally remember to check out the next day's story on the game. I certainly couldn't imagine being upset if there wasn't enough coverage. And I'm one of the people who cares enough to go.

People do seem to get into the newsier high school stories, like the team that got banned for the season for brawling, successfully sued, and then went to the state title game.

But high school games? Yeah, I don't think people care very much at all.

 

I live in Texas. Not covering high school football is not an option for newspapers.

 

I saw that attendance for the state title game was 52,000-plus.

 

As others noted, it all depends how big your community is and what part of the country.

I've worked at smaller dailies in the Midwest and now the Pacific Northwest, and people still attend Friday night football and basketball games in decent numbers. Especially the crosstown rivalries. When there's 4,000-plus people at a high school game in a town of 40,000, you probably should cover it. There will be people interested in reading about it.

When I worked in Michigan's U.P., the gyms were PACKED every Friday night, even though the teams I covered weren't good. It's something for older folks and young families to do ... and something for the teenage kids to do before they move on to illicit activities later.

 

This is why we go. And this is why I wonder if the best comparison, coverage-wise, would be to minor league baseball. It's something to do, a night out, not something people follow through news coverage like they do pro or college sports. Covering it for the majority of fans in most markets is akin to covering their service at TGI Fridays.

 

You are wrong. Horribly wrong. Thank God you have no actual say in any of this. Geezus.

 

In what way am I wrong?

 

For most large metro areas — such as Chicagoland — you're right. I'm sure 99 percent of Chicago Tribune readers don't care how, say, Downers Grove South's football team did in its Friday night game. Even if they're state-ranked.

Besides the pro and college sports interest, large metro areas such as Chicago have a ton of mobility. Many people who live there may not have grown up there, or have moved between suburbs as their families grew or cheaper, larger housing became available further out (Plainfield!!?!! Yikes!)

But for those of us in smaller communities, there remains an interest in the high school sports teams. Even if your kid (or grandkid) isn't on the team, you know more families in town. And as you say, going to games is something to do on Friday night.

 

Right. But how many people want to read about it? How many people want to read a real story about it? Most readers would be equally, probably more, satisfied, if you just ran a list of players' names. (Or, even better, a team picture!) And the ones who don't have a direct connection to the team aren't going to read about it because it's just a night out.