The Athletic keeps growing .......

They won't be able to muster the kind of manpower to devote to prep coverage any more than MaxPreps does.

MaxPreps, we're talking about stats and statewide overview. Real prep coverage, we're talking about gamers, features, local knowledge. Newspapers had that. They gave it away in many cases.

 

Wait. You receive 8 print editions sent to your home every day/week? Please elaborate.

 

No. I receive eight electronically.

 

Paul Fichtenbaum, chief content officer of The Athletic, mentioned possible high school sports additions when he spoke to the Associated Press Sports Editors' summer conference last month.

FOXSports.com and ESPN both tried national high school coverage decades ago, but a lot of that was stealing from newspapers back when everything wasn't as easily accessible online. Now, I think ESPN's high school stuff is branded -- and/or Signing Day.

 

See, I don't know how you execute that on a large-view platform, unless you're looking at the big, statewide or nationwide picture. The people who want high school coverage don't want coverage of schools 200 miles away. They want intensive coverage of the 10-15 schools in their vicinity.

 

I get the feeling that the talk of extensive high school coverage is mostly aspirational right now. Of course, now watch them add 20 writers to cover preps after I say that.

I'm more optimistic about their long-term health than I was six-to-eight months ago. Not only have they populated the beats with some of the best names around, they've brought in a lot of highly effective people behind-the-scenes that aren't obvious Big Names, like Emma Span from Sports Illustrated and Dan Kaufman from ESPN. Several of the managing editors incoming also have extensive experience managing content behind successful paywalls.

Sure, they may not be around in five years. Every person in the industry here, including myself, has literally no idea where they'll be in five years. And sure, the comments about newspapers were a bit gauche for my tastes, but it's refreshing for a company to believe in monetizing good content rather than pivoting-to-video/pivoting-to-nothing in 2018. Every writer I know at The Athletic that moved there from a newspaper is much happier now than before the switch.

 

This. And this is where Fox and ESPN failed. And while I like Maxpreps as a database for schedules, rosters and stats (assuming coaches update the page), do that many people really want national high school rankings?

 

They write a lot of puff pieces. They have no real bite to them. It’s like they’re on the staff of the teams they “cover.”

 

And oh yeah, don’t forget Rick Reilly on the Tiger beat

 

SCNG/DFM has now lost its Rams, Lakers and Ducks reporter’s to The Athletic.

It has filled the latter two beats

 

Espn did high schools at their regional sites, “espn boston” “espn dallas” etc.

They all got shuttered. They did decent work. They guys worked hard. I dont know why the Athletic wouldnt end up coming to the same conclusion espn did in the long run.