Anybody out there using Max Preps???

We created our own online database here. By we, I mean high school stats editor Van Dyess and newsroom computer guru Keith Warren.
We have a crew of part-timers who take the calls and input the results. Don't do full stats, but we are the statewide clearinghouse for football, basketball, baseball, softball, track, etc.

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=SPORTS0607

 

We use that all the time for football, Rusty. Y'all do a great job, and even get it updated surprisingly quickly on Friday night. I've written a capsule or two this season from your boxscores.
It also helps us a lot as far as tracking trends and keeping up on the area schools that call you guys, but never us

 

I've got to be honest here. It is insane for any paper to be a partner with MaxPreps or to help them in any way to compile information from your high schools. Let me say this as simply as I can: THEY ARE THE COMPETITION. They are not in business to help you out. They are in business to take your customers.

Once they take over as THE source for local sports news on the Web in your market, the local paper has lost its franchise. Why would readers go to your Web site if it is all (and more) at MaxPreps?

This isn't too hard to understand. One of the only selling points of small and mid-size newspapers these days is the fact that they are usually the only source for local news in a particular market. Once you lose that to a MaxPreps or copycat...see ya later.

When did newspapers get so lazy? For God's sake, develop your own comprehensive Web sites that offer all the basic facts - stats, game reports, standings - and cool things like photo galleries, message boards, schedules, maybe even local video.

Of course, the alternative is to help MaxPreps do all this .... and then, of course, hope they are hiring because your newspaper isn't going to be around long.

 

This is what our paper did before the high school football season and while it has been chaotic on Friday nights, people seem to be digging it. I am sure it will be easier for the next sports because we will have been through a season.
We are also posting all high school stories on this site as well as video, photo galleries and pretty much everything you listed above, minus the message boards - though people spend plenty of time arguing in the comments section at the end of the stories.

 

I agree that the best thing from a newspaper standpoint is to try as best you can do (spend the entire summer doing it) is try to find a way to do all this yourself. I imagine the traffic MaxPreps gets in areas where they have full school cooperation is already, or at least headed toward, putting a painful dent in the high school sports traffic of newspapers in those areas.

Ours needs some serious tweaking and in season isn't the time to do it (especially when the online staff isn't interested in helping us), but here is what we have every Friday night for our 26 big schools: <a href="http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/tcvarsity/scoreboard/scoreboard.php?week=8">TC Varsity Scoreboard</a>

I linked it to a page a couple weeks ago. Our scoreboard page includes all the scores as we get them and links to the game stats that we get ourself (sometimes not until Saturday for out of town games or even as late as the following Monday). It also has links to the stories and to photo slideshows, which get an unbelievable amount of traffic on our site.

That said, I still use MaxPreps sometimes for out of town team stats. It is the slowest site on the Web and trusting the incomplete data there isn't wise as there have been some pretty large discrepancies between our staff's statistics from games and a team's statistician's stats.

 

I like that setup. But what about if we have the ability to put the game stats up there right away? Do we do it? Or is it shooting our print product in the foot to do so?

I know, I know. This is a peripheral debate to what's being addressed here, AND it's been debated already. But still.

 

I think you put the game stats up right away and try to make it so your web site is the most checked one in the area on Friday nights, then with your stories in the print edition people will presumably buy the paper to read about the games.

 

Shot's question ultimately comes back to charging for your Web site. I think the Wall Street Journal has the ideal model, but it pisses me off when I have to even sign up (no charge, just set up a username and password) to view a newspaper site.

Not sure what the answer is.

 

I'm fortunate enough to work in an area where a VOLUNTEER site does much of the legwork. It, though -- and I'd imagine this is the norm -- took years to get full participation from all 30-something schools.

http://www.d9sports.com/football.htm

As for Max Preps, it's pretty helpful for basic information (team W-L records, scores, nicknames). For stats, I'd at least try to contact the AD/head coach.

 

You nailed it, BBAM. If somebody wants me to charge for their Web site, I immediately disqualify it. I don't know if that will change down the line, but that's the way I look at it now.

 

and I never got the chance to properly thank you guys for that thing while I was there. Thank you, Rusty.

and our preps guy tried to talk a bunch of podunk coaches who've probably never seen the internet into doing it this season. needless to say it didn't go too well.