Thoughts on Scout and Rivals...

Point of Order: I'm quite confident in the accuracy of what I said. I've suggested a great way for you to check for yourself. If you're too lazy or too indignant to do it, it really doesn't bother me.

Charlie: I never suggested there aren't exceptions in both camps. There are some fan web sites that are credible, for the most part. And there are CERTAINLY plenty of newspaper reporters who are a disgrace to our profession. But by and large, there's more shadiness and less professionalism on the fan sites than in newspapers. And it's because Scout and Rivals have fewer qualms hiring fans to act as reporters.

 

Why would I effort to disprove something you said that is so clearly hyperbolic and non-factual? I don't consider myself lazy or ignorant, by the way. But I do sometimes have my own issues with with name-calling, so I won't hold that against you. My point here is to get newspaper to consider the fact that having the NCAA obtain some type of controlling authority of reporters for web site is bad for all journalists. We shouldn't be divided on this. There's no legitimate reason to distinguish a guy who works (for example) for Scout.com's UT Vols web site, and also covers recruiting, from the guy who works for the Knoxville News (and GoVols.com), and covers recruiting.


Edit: I am indignant sometimes, but my point stands.

 

Don't think for a minute that a ton of these site owners don't make some serious, serious cash. I would wager that the majority of them make more than the beat writers that cover the same school. Scout charges $10 a month or $99 a year for its "insider" information. Eight site owners that I know personally, all in the South and from both services, make some jack. All but one have hired more than one person to help with the coverage.

As for me, I didn't go to the school I cover and I travel to all football and nearly all basketball games. I also travel to all playoff baseball games. I've done soccer matches, as well as some women events.

And, yes, Gene, the Warchant guy, received more than 2 large to make the switch. But to try and start an independent site would be very difficult, considering every school with any kind of fan base is already occupied by Scout and Rivals.

 

A few Rivals.com facts that might be of interest in this thread:

*Rivals recently instituted a policy across its network that forbids guys who cover recruiting to ask questions of the college head coach at a practice. All questions must be submitted in a press-conference setting. (Some Rivals sites are big enough to where one guy does game coverage, another guy covers recruiting, etc.) Rivals executives are very nervous about how the NCAA is going to respond to them, Scout and other such sites in the future. In that spirit, they are already trying to make sure nobody screws up. They hammer on that topic during their annual summer conventions and threaten to fire anyone who "gets involved in the recruiting process."

*Very few Rivals.com publishers make the really big bucks. Some do, such as the FSU and Texas sites. Some make less than $1,000 per month and use it only to supplement their other full-time job selling cars, teaching or whatever.

*Whoever said earlier that Rivals site owners are generally less professional than newspaper writers is exactly right. That's because Rivals hires fans first and news people second. They have very, very few legitimate, experienced journalists across the network. When they have an opening, they place an ad in that local market with wording to attract a fan, not a journalist. Why? Because Rivals knows most sites don't make livable money, certainly not enough for a working journalist to quit his job and start calling 17-year-olds every night, seven days a week. Many Rivals publishers are nothing but homers. The USC guy, if he's still there, would go on road trips and post photos of himself knocking back beers with fans at tailgate parties. It was priceless. Other guys show up at company conventions with the local State U. golf shirt on.

*Fans don't subscribe to a site on Rivals for objective, insightful, investigative journalism. They go there for the "fan community," to trash the in-state rival, to talk recruiting, to find out where alumni functions are being held, to discover that some prep star is visiting their campus that weekend. To their credit, Rivals execs knew this all along and give the masses what they want.

*Look for ESPN to jump into this fray in the future, and might be already trying with Insiders.inc or whatever they called it. This is one area of sports media that ESPN doesn't rule the galaxy, so look for it to do something about that at some point. ESPN used to have a contract with Rivals, but I heard that didn't work out because of some dumb article that ran on the Rivals network that ripped into Tom Lemming, who used to be ESPN's recruiting guru.

 

As a newspaper guy who recently started doing a good deal of work for scout.com, I could write a lot here, but it's late and I'm exhausted from covering every second of fall camp for the school I'm covering and well as constant recruiting reporting.

I will say this: One nice thing is that you actually have a hand in your own success. I decide what needs to be written, how much of it, how things should be covered, so and and so forth. And the more subscriptions that are sold, the more money you're making. There's a good living possible there -- in scout or rivals -- if you are good. Hell sometimes you don't have to be good.

I had the same uppity attitude about this as most of you for a long time. And there are a lot of fanboys doing this. And I still don't enjoy some of the recruiting stuff. But it's what you make it, at least in my brief experience, and I'm treating it like a newspaper beat, except for a specific audience of diehard stateU fans.

In a way I felt like I was selling out or whatever, but then I realized I was gripping tightly to an antiquated notion that my only respectable career path would be newspapers. Newspapers are a tough nut to crack right now. I'm glad for those who have gotten to where they want to be, but sometimes you have to make your own breaks if no one is giving them to you, even if it means doing a good chunk of your reporting and writing on the internet.

 

You're right on the money, Jack.

But prepare to be confronted by Point of Order, who will want you to document your facts with receipts, spreadsheets, recordings, notarized statements, etc.

 

My gut tells me that Yahoo! will buy Rivals within two years.

 

I'm thinking when you use hyperbole disguised as fact in your rag, it usually doesn't get questioned.

 

They need to get guys on salaries - expecting someone to cover the team AND be a salesman peddling subscriptions compromises a writer's journalistic integrity. It's a horrible conflict of interest. I think a lot of the fanboy tone and shenanigans have less to do with the writers actually giving a damn about the program and more to do with pandering to their target audience. The Scout guy on my beat doesn't even cover the games, because it's a golden opportunity to pimp subscriptions in the parking lots.

Otherwise, it's a sound business model that newspapers would be wise to pay attention to - not necessarily even the recruiting news portion, but just the constant flow of updated information on the team.

Personally, I like working for an entity that covers not only State U football, but statehouse government, too. But I do respect the Rivals/Scout business model, though I think it needs some tweaking to become journalistically sound.

 

Well, Point can dispute all he/she wants. What I said is 100 percent true. I know what I'm talking about with this.

 

Here's another way to look at it: Say the Rivals Iowa State site needs a day-to-day publisher. What are the odds of finding a trained, professional journalist already living in Ames, Iowa, who will take over full-time? Or what are the odds of finding one willing to move to Ames to call high-school kids every night?

The odds are very, very low. So Rivals goes after fans because that's all they have to select from in most cases. If you can actually put a sentence together, it's just icing on the cake. The two most important tasks a Rivals site publisher does is, A) Post short recruiting updates that really don't require writing skill, and B) Interact with fans on the message boards. If you do that, Rivals doesn't care about much else, and it's a formula that is working.

 

SouthernScribe's is still holding on to his three bullshit contentions as if they are fact. And it's his beckoning in the NCAA to provide some sort of ruling authority over independent media entities (homers or not) that I believe is nonsensical and bad for journalists of all kinds. I'm not disputing anything JackInTheBox said.