The Athletic keeps growing .......

You're skating on thin ice if you count on media relations to provide what you need, whatever level you're at, particularly when you are writing on deadline. And in the Internet age, there is a new deadline every minute.

 

This is going to be an interesting case. Haven't heard of one like it, though I'd guess it has happened before.

Not sure exactly what the point is. He has 27,000 followers? Not exactly a Kardashian or Katy Perry.

Social media has been a flop in generating revenue for most news outlets. Exposure? Sure. But where's the money? How much revenue can a guy with 27,000 followers be generating?

 

Fair point. Some scorebooks have the boxes for totals on the side. If they were already filled out, that would make even a novice be able to understand the stats.

 

I'll second that. Being a prep writer is the best experience you can get for almost anything else in sports. I was fortunate to cover a few Olympics, and having done a little bit of everything at the prep level was a huge help. I was far from an expert on, say, water polo, but I remember helping explain some of the basics to reporters from some major outlets that had never seen it before.

 

Just to make it worse, in this game, all 15 players batted in turn, but may not be in a defensive position. My card was more of a mess than usual.
One inning ended on a triple play at third. An inning or so later, with the help of a volunteer, we figured out which players were involved ... but I was ready to write I Don't Know was at third!

 

Read where the Twitter account/followers were passed down to him from the former beat writer, with the understanding that when he left, he would pass it down to the next guy.

Would this guy have even close to 27k followers without it being gifted to him? Seems shitty to try and keep them, if there was such an agreement in place.

But yeah, not sure how you quantify the damages for that.

 

Without looking it up -- perhaps it's info provided in the story -- are we sure he didn't grow the account significantly in terms of followers? What if he started with 10,000 and made it grow to 27,000? That doesn't sound like a gift. Sounds like an argument he made the account into what it is today.

No Twitter account gains a ton of followers based solely on the quality of work their work. I'd say about 70 percent of it is your personality on Twitter, if you're fun follow. (Less so if you're on TV, and then you just gain a ton of followers because fame begets fame.)

 

I think the account had somewhere in the vicinity of 12K followers when Andy took over the Virginia Tech beat. He certainly was not gifted all 27K.

 

Whether he was gifted all 27K isn't really the point, though. He inherited an established account that at one point had a company handle, then changed it and built up the following on company time. Does doubling the number of followers and changing the handle entitle one to ownership of the account?

 

When I ran our prep coverage, over the years we did a few things, not all during the same year. One time we put out a prep handbook for ADs and coaches, listed contact information, who on the staff covered what, what phone numbers to use call in games (this was before the internet), how we picked our all-star teams and more, pretty much a FAQ before FAQs were invented.

Also, I would at time be invited to various coaching groups to talk about coverage. It was fun telling cross country coaches that chances were they would not get the same coverage as their school's football team. To their credit, most understood.

Another year to get information on the fringe schools for our football preview section, we set up 3 or 4 meet-and-greets in various areas. Coaches came in and usually brought a player of two. That worked really well, but we had a prep editor and 3 or 4 prep writers then. Now the place has one HS writer.

 

Preps do not have a national following. Even Rivals/247 cover things from solely a recruiting perspective.

The Athletic would be wise not to dip its toe into the high school waters.

 

If there was a written agreement, seems like a pretty clear solution.