Start your own sports site?

Speak of the devil . . .

ESPN made another acquisition today, buying Student Sports, Inc., which owns DyeStat.com.

John and Donna's once itty-bitty labor of love is now officially in the big leagues. Congrats to them.

 

i'm gonna start www.workjustashard.com

Who's in?

 

There are several colleges in my area that have independent fan sites that get credentials. But we are talking low-mid major Division I.

Like this:
http://www.katfans.com/
And this:
http://www.geauxcowboys.com/

At bigger schools or pro teams, your "publication" has to have longer roots. This site: http://www.tigerrag.com/
started as a magazine and branched. They had a decent circulation back in the print-only days. I've run across representatives of that magazine and its competitor on several occasions.

If it's a small school that doesn't get a lot of ink, I would bet if you own a domain name and have a decent camera you were willing to use and a halfway presentable presentation on your web site, you could probably get a sideline or press box pass for your site.

If it's a BCS or major league team, good luck. There are already more credential requests than there are seats in the press box at most of these larger schools. And if the seats are consistently empty, they'll find a way to sell them to a high-roller before they give them to an upstart (doesn't it seem like press areas get smaller and luxury boxes get bigger?). I've been to a couple of smaller schools where I've seen the press box actually reduced and partitioned to a luxury box area or press row squeezed so the school could sell courtside seats. So don't expect teams to go out of their way.

 

My god, if ESPN ever starts covering our local high school sports online better than we (the local media) do, it's all over.

 

Access is always going to be a huge problem in this idea. If you're a legitimate paper, a university or high school is very unlikely to refuse you credentials or take them away or put players, coaches, etc. off limits.

But when you're starting your site, said institutions, if they don't like the tone or content of your coverage, can just end your access and that's the end of your site pretty much.

Sure, once you're able to build up a big audience, they'll think twice, but I suspect in many cases, you'd have to be a shill for the school at the start or risk getting your credentials yanked.