Today's sign of the apocolypse from SI.com

Its front page photo

 

oh my... you're right. Can you say pandering?

 

hey, my paper put a little-better-than-average high school quarterback changing schools on the front page of sports. I can guess it was because he was leaving the rich suburban school where he would have split time with someone else., for another school...
Oh.It's the same city where the publisher lives.
THAT'S pandering...

 

I remember OJ back when he was just a 15-year-old 7th-grader.

Oh, how the times have changed.

 

Nobody cares about prep hoops, except for their own local teams.

If some private pseudo-academy can dole out enough goodies and cash on the side to assemble a decent semipro team, I don't care, and neither does 99.999997 percent of the readership of America. Most of these guys will be in college one year, then they'll be drafted in the second round behind 20 guys from Steamingturdistan.

 

In very, very short order, many if not most of the leading players will quit playing high school ball altogether, opting instead to play 200 games a year on their travel teams.

It'll become just like hockey -- only the second- and third-tier players will play high school sports.

 

me too, back then he also said that he was going to college, which is very rare nowadays.

 

This was on the front page of SI.com? For *how* long?

 

He was 15 and still in Grade 7? Geezus.....I was in Grade 11 at age 15. Doogie Howser was finishing medical school, for crying out loud.

 

But if you include summer league/AAU type coverage, who is that coverage for? The recruiters? The parents? There are fewer readers in every market that care about those types of teams. If someone you're related to isn't affiliated, you don't care.

No reason to staff these types of functions save the climatic showdowns (championships, two big local stars going head-to-head, etc.). No one reads this stuff except the parents and grandparents of the players.

 

Which is also true for the vast majority of varsity high school sports.

 

Flawed theory. No one cares about the offseason process, save for the kids and coaches. Readers might care where a stud senior might continue his career in college, but once the season is done, that's it. It's on to the winter hoops season or the spring baseball season -- whatever comes next. Keep an eye on what might happen for future use, but don't overdo it.