Travel cutbacks?

With all of these cutbacks and economic meltdown going on, was curious to know how many out there who cover local universities no longer travel for games. or have such assignments drastically cut back.
four years ago, we went on every road trip with the D-I team we cover. no longer. save for possible bowl trips or within reasonable driving distance, it's strictly relying on stringers or, at the very worse, the SID's.

 

Talked to a local SE at a college game tonight. His writer was also stringing the game for the visiting team's hometown paper -- not the first time it's happened this year, and won't be the last.

 

We follow the only major D-I program to every game. That, however, has recently cost the preps writer(s) trips to state championship tournaments -- among other travel cutbacks in the department.

 

WE outsourced two major D-I mammoth programs to another paper, and we no longer travel for the two local D-I schools. Unbelievable.

 

How is that outsourcing working out and have the local D-I schools complained?

 

I was told in December I would travel to all league road games for the mid-major in town. I made hotel reservations. Then I was told later in December that overnight trips were out, which eliminated five of the nine league road games. I had to fight tooth and nail to cover one of our home teams tonight (60 miles away) against a top-5 team. So yeah, our budget has been slashed.

 

On a somewhat related topic, how many have had mileage scaled back with the drop in gas prices?

 

Hah. Went down from .39 to .32 Jan. 1. Gas has risen .35 a gallon since then. When I asked the HR director if it would make a corresponding rise, she didn't sound confident.

Fuck this entire business. In its ear. Twice.

 

With a rusty pipe.

 

If I'm not mistaken, our mileage just increased. Weird, but nice for the writers.

Cosmo, how much is gas up your way? That's quite a rise in the last two weeks. We're hovering around 1.74 here.

 

1.75. It was about 1.40 when the decision was made.

 

Before I was "bought out" my paper was cutting back considerably on travel.

The previous year we sent three to cover the big local school in its bowl game. Two writers were there the whole time the team was and the columnist flew in the day before the game. The following year, we sent one writer for two days, which essentially meant game coverage and nothing else.