Thoughts on Scout and Rivals...

I think there's a major difference between the national sports writers at Rivals.com and everyone at Scout.com.

I have very few good things to say about the "recruiting" writers. Too many fanboys. Sadly, the recruits are feeding the monster. I swear that some kids change their list with every call just to get another story.

 

Why wouldn't they? If I was 17 and had a bunch of clucks chasing me around asking me where I was going to college, some of them acting like they'd be happy to blow me for an exclusive on my "oral," I'd consider it my moral imperative to fuck with them.

 

Wow. When did newspapers have the staffing to "own" recruiting and the NFL Draft? I must have missed that era.
If you're going to cover recruiting fanatically, you've got to have at least one person on the staff who does nothing but recruiting. And aside from a scant few and very large newspapers, nobody I"m aware of has ever had that level of manpower. The Web would have taken over this portion of the landscape anyway.
The newspaper industry can be faulted for many things, but this isn't one of them.

 

Without reading five pages, I think those sites and their ilk are a pox on high school sports. I know some good people who have gone to work for those sites, but they represent everything that is wrong with the prep sports hype machine.

 

One person to do recruiting? That would have been hard?
I've worked at papers with GA guys, with investigative guys, with backup beat guys, with multiple columnists.
(And gals, of course).
People craved this recruiting info. We as a business thought we were too good to chase it for them.

 

In a sense, we were too good to chase it for them. Here's how: Many of us figured out that coaches were using us as emissaries in recruiting after NCAA rules began to restrict contact between schools and athletes. Ethically, we were often obligated to step back. Into the fray walked Rivals and Scout, which play by a different rulebook. I'm not ashamed to have stepped back.

 

Ethically? Because the NCAA says so?
Great.
When the Rivals guys have jobs and the paper guys don't, I'm sure all the paper guys will feel better that they played by the NCAA's rules.

 

That's because we are. You can't cover that stuff with any real expectation that you're reporting the truth. Fans don't want the truth, they want reports that say their school is awesome and all players want to go there, which is what they get from Rivals and Scout. They would never have gotten that from any respectable newspaper.

A major college coach railed on this over the summer. He said he's seen guys list his school as a favorite when he can't even get to first base with the kid. And he's seen guys decommit because once they committed, the stories stopped being written. It's hogwash and it's not journalism.

Congratulations to Rivals and Scout for doing that and making a lot of money at it. There was a business opportunity there, and they pounced on it. Good for them. Good for anybody who finds a legal way of making money. But I'll keep my dignity.

 

Seen it too many times. Kid commits to a school then some idiot from a Rivals or Scout site writes a story of this nature: "Will Joe Stud honor his commitment now that Big State U is showing interest?" It's the journalism equal to "Sarah said she'd go to prom with John, but then Ted asked her. What will she do now!?!" If this is what readers want, they're not worth serving. I'll happily find something else to do.

 

So we simply stop covering all those things we find to be trashy?
OK:
No more stories about who an athlete will choose as his agent.
Certainly no more stories about how much money the athlete will sign for. Why should we care? It's not our money, and isn't it just despicable that an athlete would be paid so much?
It's not OK for us to write stories about whether a coach should be fired -- because, in fact, those stories frequently cause lead to the firing of said coach. Well, that sure doesn't sit well in the gut, does it?
We just show up and write the final score, and that's that.
Advances and gamers. Period.

 

Was talking to the Rivals guy with the school I cover during a recent practice.

He said that -- from subscription revenues, ad revenues and a cut from souvenir/apparel sales through the site -- the guy who runs the Rivals site for a Big 12 school made $400,000 last year.

 

I've seen both sides of this issue.

I know people who work for Rivals and Scout and I know reporters at major metros and smaller daily and weekly papers.

You have good people and bad people all over this business — regardless if you're talking internet sites, newspaper or magazines.

I know it is not this way everywhere, but the Rivals/Scout people I know approach their jobs as if they were covering a college beat for a daily paper. At the same time, I've seen more than enough people in newspapers who wave the pom-poms for the home team in their coverage and some who even cheer in the press box when State U. makes a big play.