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More cuts: ESPNHS unit

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by silvercharm, Jun 13, 2012.

  1. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    High school sports, even more than colleges, are a LOCAL property. Outside of the occasional recruiting person who lives, eats and breathes this stuff 24/7, there isn't going to be much of an audience in, say, Michigan, for Texas high school sports news.

    Honestly, it's the same for small colleges. I worked in a market with an NAIA juggernaut. You would think it would draw some interest outside the city limits. Nope. Virtually ALL the stuff ever written was from our staff (even the school website reprinted our stuff). If you wanted news on the school, you had to go to our site (or the school stuff, which ran our stuff).

    If some person/company wants to start a journalism business, there is certainly fertile ground to do so by building a website dedicated to local high school sports.... big city or small town. But it seems like every venture I have ever heard that tried this bled red ink. Then again, more and more I think, journalism and profit are at odds with one another.
     
  2. JJHHI

    JJHHI Member

    A good friend is there. I feel awful for everyone losing their jobs unexpectedly. The only silver lining is they aren't shutting down until Sept. 14, so it gives everyone a chance to get their ducks in a row. Hope everyone lands on their feet.
     
  3. Mystery Meat II

    Mystery Meat II Well-Known Member

    Odd timing. They'll be a few weeks into football season when they close shop.
     
  4. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    The place for prep sports news will always be in local papers, and nowhere else. And the smaller the paper the better, since they're more likely to blow out the coverage and give mom something for the scrapbook.

    If someone thinks they can make a large-scale prep website work, good luck. A lot have come through the boards here, leaving a lot of people high and dry.
     
  5. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    One of the biggest reasons why I have always had my doubts about national high school sports coverage is that, by necessity, it's dealing almost completely with the best and the brightest, the elite athlete. That's very limiting.

    Where small newspapers have the advantage is that it can cover more of a community, especially young people who won't have 10-15 years of seeing their name in print on a regular basis.

    One of the more successful "national" ventures is the Milesplit franchise for track & field. And why does that seem to have some success? Because it's split into 50 "mini-sites," and as a result, can dig deeper into the rank and file of high school athletes. Also, they are able to keep pretty accurate statistics, leader lists, etc., when they're dealing with just one state.
     
  6. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    I've seen ESPN's national ratings, as well as the ones from Maxpreps, but never put much stock in them. I know in a lot of state, AP or one of the larger papers would run a state poll, but that was never the case in California. Which is a cause for concern, since the firm that has done them historically was bought a few years ago by ... ESPN.
     
  7. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    Never understood how anyone could hope to rank teams or athletes from, say, California with others from thousands of miles away. It's interesting sports bar debate fodder, but with no real measuring criteria except in, say, track and swimming where you can compare times.
     
  8. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    Yes, but if you shy away from the high school competition end of it and spent all your time talking about recruiting and All-Americans ... you're Scout.com.
     
  9. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    Agreed. That's the ONLY appeal of a large high school site.

    Unless you're an alum or have some specific tie, why would someone care if Podunk beat Shitsville? That's where local papers/sites come in. You have to have boots on the ground to do that.

    Since I moved away two days after HS graduation, I have never really cared to follow HS coverage. In 30 years, I think I've gone to exactly ONE high school game that I wasn't working in some capacity. I don't have kids and don't have a rooting interest, so I generally pass over those pages of a paper.
     
  10. Ice9

    Ice9 Active Member

    I would say the Boston, Dallas and Chicago sites do pretty well on the high school front.
     
  11. TheHacker

    TheHacker Member

    Amen. I've long questioned the over-emphasis of high school sports by the media. Sometimes I think even the people who live in Podunk and Shitsville don't care, especially if those two places are inhabited by a high number of transplants. Obviously there are places where high school sports hold a special place in the community and draw a lot of attendance. I grew up in a place like that, and for a long time I saw everything through that lens. But I've worked in places where it's not like that at all. I think even a community paper has to be mindful of its market. There are a lot of places where life doesn't revolve around Friday night football and basketball games.
     
  12. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    Had an editor once who thought this way, too. I guess it's just a philosophical difference from place to place.
     
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