statewide prep sports positions

Looks like Rick Harmon, formerly of the Tampa Tribune, is the coordinator for Florida. Also have seen copy from Matthew Severance, whose name looks familiar but I can't place it. They sent out a release today to, surprisingly, all the Florida newspapers announcing their beginning. Curious considering they mostly are, to me at least, competition. Do you all see them the same way, and could these sites try to cooperate with papers?

 

This has been a problem at nearly every newspaper I have worked at. I'm not tying to stick up for them. I'm just saying people who work in the communication business often forget that communication makes things run better.

 

Can they compete with newspapers? I don't see why not. Afterall, it is the internet that's driving newspapers into the ground.

But considering coaches aid does not currently have a budget for stringers, I don't see how they will. I'm curious as to how they will fill their site with content when they don't have any reporters or photographers to fill it. They claim they will have a stringer budget by November, but of course, they have said a lot of things that haven't held true so I'm not putting much stock into that. And besides, football season is pretty much over by then anyway so they're already missing out on the biggest sport for this year.

 

High school football started last night in my state. Coaches Aid site has NOTHING on any of it.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and lay down $50 that one day this thing won't be "dynamite across the country."

 

I have seen many newspaper writers and editors get frustrated through the years when staffing and other changes have made it impossible to cover as many events as they thought they should or cover events the right way.
But then the paper always comes out with the best section the staff can manage under the circumstances.

What I'm always amazed at is how many people start up Web sites like this, tell everyone what great stuff they are going to do then somehow think it won't reflect on them if they just fail to update the site. Do they think their potential readers are going to keep looking for the day they finally have something posted? Do they think the readers won't care if they only update it when they get around to it?

The newspaper business model may need a serious overhaul, but only sporadically producing content when you feel ready does not seem to be the answer.

 

Which is one of the main reasons you can't do a "soft launch" when it comes to news sites.
It. Doesn't. Work.

 

Unless I am mistaken, CoachesAid hasn't sent any press releases out or anything announcing its nationwide expansion. Essentially, I think, they are in the building process.

RB

 

I just took a peek at the site and Rhode Island was up there.
Strangely enough, the state director - or whatever his title is - lives in Vermont, or does according to his facebook page.
With the ProJos downfall, R.I. is primed to have prep sports coverage dominated by a Web site, as long as someone can do it correctly. Having the director two states over is not a good way to do that.

 

The state where I am at has been updating several times a day with all original content so already they are are better than the MaxPreps and Rivals site here. They likely won't touch the dailies game night coverage because of staffing, but can beat them with features and constant coverage.

 

Since all of the coordinators were in Oklahoma last week for a big meeting, any of you coordinators out there care to update us on what's going on as far as the hiring budget? Is October/November still accurate or is it on a state-by-state basis? And was there a particular reason the hirings were delayed in the first place?

There's a ton of people on here that have been left in limbo about this whole thing and some of us are counting on it for some income. I know a lot of us would appreciate a little communication.

So if there's some coordinators on this thread (and I know for a fact that there are), would you mind telling us if there were any concrete decisions made regarding hirings? Thanks.

 

This is very ambitious. If they put the resources behind it there is no reason it will not work. However, I doubt they will finance it anywhere near as much as they should. Which is sad because there are people who quit their gigs to work there.