RIP: Print media guides in the ACC

This will definitely be the end of boxes and boxes of media guides in sports offices everywhere. I recently cleaned out our collection of media guides, keeping a few for sentimental reasons (USL 1998 with Brandon Stokley on the cover with plastic football players with the headline "We're Not Playing Around") and it was a back-breaking chore for sure. Most sports guys are packrats. I say bury the dead, it stinks up the joint. Coglin's law.

 

Big 12 office is considering this. At first wasn't crazy about the idea because I like having the info on a page where I can jot notes, etc. But it wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen, as long as the data is readily available and easy to find and access.

 

Having a meeting at the Ritz and announce ways of saving money is hypocritical.

 

I wonder if they'll still print them to send to recruits.

 

The ACC may have already had a contract with the Ritz before things really went south. I would be shocked if you see them there next year.

 

Big Sky Conference did this for basketball. Beats me why we got one because we don't have a team within 100 miles of us.

 

I, too, prefer to have the hard copies, and because I am a packrat, I've turned into a mini-collector of some of them.

Practically, if it gets me the information in the same amount of time, fine. But I know it won't, because I can just thumb through a hard copy real fast and know it would take longer to plug in the stick, pull up the PDF and then search for it.

Plus, when I'm on the desk, and a bunch of us need to share the media guide, I forsee it being a lot easier to toss the book from person to person instead of plugging the stick in - especially when the USB ports are on the back of something that's strapped to my desk.

 

Good career move.

 

Jesus, does this mean I have to read an actual book when I go to the crapper?

 

Also, paper doesn't crash or transmit computer viruses.

 

I am a baseball writer, and last year I stopped collecting all the MLB media guides. I had boxes full of them in my house and decided it just wasn't worth the hassle for the amount of time I actually needed them. Now almost all the stuff I need is online, including PDFs of the actual hard-copy media guide.

For the team I was actually covering, I simply downloaded the PDF onto my hard drive. For the other teams, I'd access them online.

In some ways it's faster than the paper version (you can search) and in some ways it's slower (page loading). It's definitely easier on the environment and my back.

 

Big East, by the way, is not joining the crowd. They will continue to publish hard-copy conference guides.