MaxPreps.com: Another possible revenue stream squandered by newspapers?

If I remember correctly, Gannett's system was cobbled together with duct tape and cardboard at Greenville. They made it work since they were the ones who put it together.
The G made a mighty push to get as many papers on it as they could. My old shop resisted with the best defense any G shop can have, we'll need to hire someone to make it work.
That pretty much killed it.
But Damon is right, newspapers missed the boat with sports fanatic coverage online. Recruiting, preps, super expanded coverage, a bunch of Web sites filled the gaps while newspapers diddled themselves.
Next up is youth league sports and photo coverage from those games.

 

Hell ... this could be its own thread (and probably has been) ...

I covered a high school soccer team where the coaches kept reporting that their goalkeeper had 20 to 30 saves a game. Took me half the season to figure out that they were counting any ball the keeper touched as a save. I had to explain the stat to them because, well, they didn't know shit.

It wasn't intentional. It's just -- they didn't know shit.

Not just in soccer. I've seen that with baseball, football, basketball, too. You've got 17-year-old senior girls and team moms and middle-age dads who never played ... all serving as "statisticians". Most of them are nice enough, but they don't have the first clue how to keep stats or what the rules are.

 

Looking at MaxPreps, I would say locally based prep sites can still develop and thrive. Apart from all the complaints others have listed, it seems clear to me MaxPreps' bottom line isn't going to be the prep fan -- I mean, how many people, say, in Pennsylvania care about results from Oregon? -- but the college scout and, especially, the high school kid desperate to get noticed by said scout.

 

For Virginia schools, MaxPreps is pretty good in terms of football records/standings, but that's as far as I'd trust them. Never for stats. No way.

As an aside, when I was in Flag, we tried once to start a prep stat database. Apparently, everything was going to flow through the mothership in St. Louis and we just needed someone to help track down the numbers and input them in our system. Of course, we hired a 20-hour a week person to do it. Yeah, that didn't work. And our stats site never actually got going ...

Do do prep stats right, you'd have to have at least one, full-time 40-hour person who does nothing but keep those stats. Doesn't take calls at night. Doesn't help proof pages. Spends his/her entire time tracking down the numbers and getting them ready. You might even need two or three people, depending on how many schools you cover. No way any newspaper is willing to put that sort of money into stat positions, though...

 

Twenty years ago, I'd say that was a no-brainer, that you're absolutely right.

I'm not quite so sure today. High school sports on the national level has grown by leaps and bounds.

 

Herein lies the problem.

Is maxpreps a great idea? Yup. Might it become a primary source of information for readers in the future? Maybe. However, it's a different product than newspapers. For most editors, it's impractical to ask their prep beat writers to be great beat writers AS WELL AS great statistic-compilers. They're different disciplines. Somehow it bothers me that the LA Times links to maxpreps, though. Seems like a paper of that size would be one of the few with the resources to do both - have its own reliable stats database as well as good daily beat writing.

As for prep reporters, as is often the case, it's essential to double-check the facts you're getting off maxpreps. No two coaches treat the site alike. OK, a bit of an exaggeration, but ... a football coach at my previous gig would, the day after a game, double-check all his team's stats on video and post those on maxpreps. He usually had a couple yards here or there that I seemed to miss. Invaluable. For every one of those, however, there's 5 coaches who reassigned a jersey number midway through the preseason and didn't bother to change that information on maxpreps.

And for every one of you who rips the site, I can recall 10 times thinking, "what would I do without this site?"

 

Y'know, enigami, as right as that sounds, I think it might be incorrect. It's just possible that great prep beat writers do necessarily need to be great statistic-compilers. It's all part of the package, especially at those newspapers that AREN'T the L.A. Times, Chicago Trib, etc.

 

Fuckabuncha MaxPreps. I got tired of getting their Friday stats on Sunday afternoon. Without the opponent's stats, at that.

 

gotta agree with shotglass.

Our prep editor's job is to maintain the database of stats. he spends many hours on Saturday's emailing, calling and faxing coaches to get the best stats available from each game. Some coaches do it quickly without being called, others don't do it regardless. Then he inputs the stats into the system and has his weekly stat leaders agate ready for Monday's paper.

If a coach is pissed because his kid didn't get included in the leaders list or get more consideration for all-state teams, it's the coach's fault.

 

At my first paper we had all public school football games staffed by freelancers or staffers, even though there'd be as many as 25 on any given Friday. The stat package we ran was ours, not coach-supplied. I think they've expanded to make sure the major private schools are always staffed as well.

It's probably impratical for most papers, but I liked that we were using our own numbers as recorded by people without a dog in the fight. Given how coaches in all sports can either inflate/deflate stats or just be behind the curve because of conditions/lack of people/whatever, it was a nice touch.

 

I wrote for MaxPreps before I changed jobs and they were a wonderful company to write for. The only thing I don't like about the site is my state isn't very well represented on there. I tried to do as much as I could for Kentucky, but I just didn't have enough time.

I stopped writing for them when I moved because I didn't think I'd have time, but now I wish I hadn't.

As far as using the site for stats, that's another story.

 

To clarify: when I cover pro football, at the end of the game I get a 10-page stapled packet of stats I could never hope to keep on my own. This is great statistic-keeping. It helps enhance my game stories from week to week. By the end of the season, there's a killer repository of stats for the team and its individual players that tells its own story, possibly worth more than the sum of its parts. This is what maxpreps.com COULD be, if every prep coach put their whole ass into it. Is this a far-fetched utopia? Sure, but I've seen individual coaches here and there make it happen. Makes me want to give 'em a hug.

This is separate from great beat writing, describing the big picture and small picture of the events of the practice/game/week without putting the reader to sleep. Doing that is made tougher by trying to keep your own stats, but I've had to do it at every shop I've written for, and I don't expect that to change. I just don't think I can be GREAT at both, that's all. Maxpreps can ease the burden on prep beat writers by becoming a GREAT place for stats.

I agree, but it pains me to HAVE to think that way.