Thanks for all the ink, now drop dead

In Indiana it's strictly chance. Two winless teams could get byes in the first round while the top two teams in the state have to play each other straight off.

 

In the current environment, what with newspapers having live webcast capability, this is a bigger deal than it was say, seven years ago.

 

Print is Betty. TV is Veronica.

 

I prefer Betty. Veronica is bitchy and a tease.

 

You know, a school district not far from me just had to go to a 4-day week because they no longer have the money to keep their school open on Friday. School budgets are getting slashed like crazy because tax revenue is falling hundreds of millions of dollars short of projections.

If schools can get money selling something like this, more power to them. Sorry if the newspapers were inconvenienced for a few hours. (And I'm not saying that as a TV guy. Couldn't give a single shit about anything related to prep sports.)

 

About three-four weeks ago, I was covering a boys game. The girls' game immediately prior was taking a little long, so I ended up seeing the final quarter of that game.
It was one of the better teams in the area against one of the mediocre ones. The better team was up 20 or so in the fourth quarter, and coach had sat all his starters. TV guy comes in, and the coach actually put the starters back in the game.
That was a first for me -- at least in terms of me noticing. The photographer from the paper I was working for that night hinted at the fact that he's seen it plenty.

 

Let me offer some prospective here.

Without seriously outing myself, I used to work for one of the eight papers that this would cause problems for -- and it didn't.

You have to realize that Section III stretches over a huge area of New York State -- from about 40 minutes outside of Ithaca to the Canadian border.

When you're a small paper -- especially one at the edge of the section -- and your coach has to travel two hours to get to the seeding meeting, then call all his/her players; it's just about that time until you can get a hold of them.

It sure as hell beats calling all of the other newspapers in the area who are on a skeleton Sunday staff and bothering them -- if someone answers.

I would also place a bet that all of those seedings were on the Syracuse Post Standard's high school sports message boards well before 6 p.m. Even if they're not official it gave all of us a pretty good idea who was going where.

 

Can't you watch the telecast and get the brackets from there?

 

It's frustrating, though, when a paper covers a league all season long, but preference is given to the TV station that gets to one game a week -- and that's on a good week.
And it would be different if they aired this right after the pairings were decided (a la the NCAA tournament), but they sat on it for at least two hours.
But, in my experience, FarmerJerome is rarely wrong, so I suppose I'll concede the point. [too lazy to use blue font]

 

Ahem. Young man, I assume you've forgotten what it was like to hunt down the 'verbal tussle' coach and what a ray of sunshine he/she was? ;D

Honestly, I do see my sarcastic friend's point. It isn't fair that TW gets the rights, double the fact that they sit on it forevah. Still, Section III covers a lot over very rural area and this Time Warner deal is great for that one (or five) douchebag coach that won't return a phone call.

I say thumbs up.

 

The same is also true at most football games we cover. The paper gos to games - in small press boxes and gets the shaft any time TV (tape-delay cable) and/or radio (even the am fuckers) show up to do the game.
Some things never change.

 

Evil...i've found the same thing over the years in regard to prep football games i've covered. we'll cover a school all season long with lots of stories, features, etc., then TV dudes who might show up for one game all season and then appear for playoffs get the royal treatment.
sour grapes, envy?
call it what you like, but it is amusing more than anything else, the way the schools, officials, fans, etc., fall over themselves because some dudes with a satellite truck and cameras show up. never ceases to amaze me.