CBSSports.com discontinues College RapidReports

Just got the word a little while ago.

Extremely bummed out. Was a great gig with great people. Glad they called me to give me the news directly.

Frustrating to build this thing up and see it go "poof" after one cycle of football and basketball.

 

No other way to put it. That sucks. I know each team is different, but there was usually a lot of good information on there. I hope you land on your feet.

On the business side, however, I don't know how much money it was pulling in. With how many teams/writers there were, I know it wasn't cheap to fund.

 

How long before the NFL ones go away? I have trouble seeing how these things make money for CBS?

 

That's what I was wondering. Seemed like it was more a way to get social media traffic to CBSSports.com in general rather than a real money-making model.

 

This was secondary income for me, which actually I earmarked for my thin income during the summer.

My primary income comes from the daily I work for producing a weekly section, but that is ending when school gets out (and hopefully will be starting back up in August).

But I agree on the business model aspect of RR....I think we had 60 people doing football/basketball. That's a lot of money going out every week (yes, we were paid weekly).

Just a great gig that took me to some great places for "work." I am very appreciative of the opportunity. Just wish it could have kept going.

Frustrating and disappointing.

 

Darn. That is disappointing to hear. They were considered competition for me, but I really liked what they were doing.

The person who did it at the school I cover was a seasoned journalist. Always provided good info. The financial constraints are understandable, though. I understand they didn't pay a whole lot, but he traveled to all the football games and NCAA Tournament. That adds up quickly.

 

Sorry to hear, BT.

I don't have much of an opinion one way or the other on RapidReports themselves. It seemed like it was basically CBS' self contained version of Twitter with a little longer character limits. Not an awful idea in itself but as has been pointed out here, hard to monetize and thus hard to sustain.

Sorry for all those that counted on this as income, primary or otherwise.

 

Same here. The guy who did it on my beat was a really nice guy, hope things work out alright for him.

 

I'm betting the NFL RapidReports continue because it's, well, the NFL.

 

It was my secondary income, but was nice to get that check every week. Not to mention a good group of people to work for, as evidenced by them calling us to tell us personally. Disappointing news.

 

I hope so. This probably isn't a good sign, but at least with the NFL they only had 32 people on the payroll. God knows how many they had for the colleges...

 

Was anyone actually doing RR as a main source of income? I though they just got folks with regular jobs and had them do RR on the side?