Successful stand-alone websites covering just prep sports

No idea how successful this site it, but it has "member exclusive" content (not a subscriber, but looks like a lot of recruiting stuff).

http://www.wissports.net/

 

I haven't seen their books, but Scrimmage Play, which Big Circus mentioned, has advertisers and has been in business a few years. It's a full-time job for two guys, not just a hobby.

The guy who owns it did tell me part of their business model is to cater to the area private schools, which have a lot of boarding students. They get a lot of Web hits and subscriptions from parents keeping tabs on their kids from a distance.

 

John Harrell runs a good one in Indiana, http://indianahsbasketball.homestead.com/ which focuses on scores, schedules, standings and is a great resource.

On the coverage side, you have Matt Anderson's site in Michigan http://fridaynighttitans.com/

 

Some of these are really good websites, but how do we know if they are successful? Preps is weird because people may only care about a school/sport for a couple of years then go on their way.

Though it does seem ripe for better coverage in lots of places.

 

This site is pretty successful -- started about 5 years ago -- and is talking about expanding into different cities. it has some "name" reporters from the west-central Ohio region:

http://pressprosmagazine.com/

 

Warning: Unsolicited audio. Bad in every case, including this one.

 

Agreed, but that's becoming the trend.

 

You all are awesome. Thank you.

 

That started out as a message board (I'm sure you know) and I argue it wouldn't exist or be successful without its message board.

 

Amen to that. Started one and found that out myself.

 

Doesn't cover just prep sports though. I know the owner. They've really expanded coverage, do a lot of Ohio State sports and Reds/Bengals. They have to former Dayton Daily News writers as contributors. Since it started up, they've always covered some college sports (Dayton basketball) and outdoors stuff. I agree they do a good job, but they cover way more than high school sports.

 

One that doesn't exactly fit the stand-alone website model but comes close is bigtimesportsohio.com. Their business model includes airing programming on local TV and radio under their own brand and to push back to their web site. Not a lot of articles on the site, though.