For $40.....

[Noholesin1]

I think my best estimate for a high school game, door to door, is that it takes about 5-6 hours of work even if there's no real driving involved. If the game starts at 7, figure you leave the house at 6 to get there, park, get in the stadium and get settled 15 minutes before kickoff; three hours for the game and to get back to the office/home; and then an hour to write and edit photos (if necessary).
So $40 works out to about $7 or $8 an hour.

My publishers have asked me for years to find stringers to help with high school football. I've always told them I can't find any good writers I trust on deadline (which is true), but another part of it is that I'm embarrassed to offer them the $50 a game that I think is our current rate. I'd rather ask them to do it for free than offer them that pittance.
Thankfully, we have a couple of outstanding local photographers who do work for free.

Getting to a high school game 15 minutes before kickoff is fine until you run into a situation where there's no roster from the visiting team. That'll make you adjust.

 

[SixToe]

This is what a newspaper wants from its HS stringers of Friday night for $40

1) tweets after every score
2) Post game audio from coach and player from each team.
3) Photos and video if possible
4) Then 250-300 words.

Uh, no thanks

Consider that you'll maybe have four hours, possibly 4.5, invested in this game with pregame driving, the game and post-game work.

Let's just say four to make it easy. That's $10 an hour.

Remove taxes, if necessary. Consider the gas to-from and any other expense(s): hotdog, a game program if they don't provide one, etc.

You may end up paying them for doing this work. If not, you're working for a few bucks an hour.

"Yeah, but that's just part of it."

It shouldn't be, after all these years of **** pay for stringing.

"Well, you're getting clips and experience."

Perhaps. The latter probably is most valuable, to be honest, as you learn to navigate the waters.

"It's a little extra beer money."

Pfftt. You're buying ****ty beer if this is paying for it.


Poor payment for freelancers. Unpaid internships. Terrible salaries, along with the ongoing demise of the industry thanks to Ogden, Alden, Gannett, et al. Been there, done it, thought it was BS then and still do.

Just say no.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

We actually have a Wing-T team in town. And they're a state championship contender this year. And they're in a pretty bad district other than themselves and maybe two other teams. AND the state association instituted a running clock rule for blowouts. I'm very, very excited to cover this team.
I foresee at least a couple of games being over by 9 p.m. I think they had a couple last year when this team was up about 40 at halftime and the coaches agreed to run the clock in the second half.

You were born too late to cover Delaware high school sports in the '60s. EVERY school in the state ran the Wing-T, because Dave Nelson, a longtime coach for U of D in that time period, invented the formation, and all the coaches went to his clinics. Defensive team meeting sure were boring by midseason.

 

[BTExpress]

I'm currently getting paid what Fort Lauderdale was paying me in 1989. To put that in perspective, the house I had in South Florida could have been built for $89,000 in 1989 (cost me $129,000 in 1996). It's worth $484,000 today.

It's just one reason --- but not even the main one --- why it's . . . 7 months and 4 days until retirement.

 

[Preacher Roe]

The tweets boggle my mind. You could be the only reporter at a game and they want you to give away the valuable information for free. And so a competitor can have a guy in the office write running and post it well before your story posts.

 

[rtse11]

The tweets boggle my mind. You could be the only reporter at a game and they want you to give away the valuable information for free. And so a competitor can have a guy in the office write running and post it well before your story posts.

Follow the beat reporters on Twitter for both teams in any P5 college football game and it's running PxP. I guess if some mega fan is stuck at his sister's wedding it's great but otherwise I don't understand it. Ironic, since we're supposed to be writing analysis instead of gamers for the web and print.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Follow the beat reporters on Twitter for both teams in any P5 college football game and it's running PxP. I guess if some mega fan is stuck at his sister's wedding it's great but otherwise I don't understand it. Ironic, since we're supposed to be writing analysis instead of gamers for the web and print.

That's college -- a far cry from high school coverage. And in HS coverage, the only way that's not a selling point is if the game is being video-streamed (and not behind a paywall).

I'd bet there are many "mega-fans" for HS teams in Texas, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania who breathlessly await each tweet.

 

[Roscablo]

The tweets boggle my mind. You could be the only reporter at a game and they want you to give away the valuable information for free. And so a competitor can have a guy in the office write running and post it well before your story posts.

As someone who was trying to follow my kids' school in a road game funny enough against my alma mater this past Friday in a Week 0 game that virtually no one cared about, I would have at least liked a couple of score updates! Play-by-play is dumb overall, but whatever.

 

[MileHigh]

As someone who was trying to follow my kids' school in a road game funny enough against my alma mater this past Friday in a Week 0 game that virtually no one cared about, I would have at least liked a couple of score updates! Play-by-play is dumb overall, but whatever.

I heard that ended up being a pretty wild game.

$40 is ridiculous and agree, play-by-play is dumb.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

My opinion, tweeting updates of a game you’re at solo could build a following.

tweeting play by play of a game that’s on television ought to be a captial crime

 

[sgreenwell]

At least for Texas football, I'd tweet on scores and possession changes, as well as at the end of each quarter. At halftime, the most important stats, but not all of them. I think that's a decent balance between not doing play by play, and keeping people who aren't there informed enough of the game. Plenty of those tweets would get a good amount of "likes" on them.

 

[Batman]

It's not that I don't mind tweeting out scores — honestly, I sometimes use feeds from other writers and schools to fill in the gaps on stats and such, and I figure it's a bit of a public service to occasionally do the same — it's that I forget.
I'm busy taking pictures, or catching my breath for 30 seconds after a touchdown drive, and then it hits me that I didn't tweet out an update as the kickoff is in the air. Or it's 38-0 in the third quarter and I realize I haven't tweeted out the last two touchdowns so maybe I'll just do the final score later on. Or the game ends and I'm chasing down coaches and players and hustling back to the office so I can write that gamer and three others and get them all on the page in the two hours until deadline, and I don't have even two minutes to spare to pull out the phone, fire up the Twitter app, and bang out a tweet.
Tweeting a score is rarely in the top three things I'm thinking about in a given moment during a game. A lot of times it's not even in the top 10.

 

[Roscablo]

I heard that ended up being a pretty wild game.

$40 is ridiculous and agree, play-by-play is dumb.

I still don't really know what happened. My younger kid's longtime football coach is an assistant at Collins now, so I'll ask him at the next practice. Fort Collins was down 13-0 then 20-7 and won 21-20. There was a pick six in there. Other than that I have no idea! Lack of tweets!

It's funny, we were pretty good when I was in school. Went to the playoffs every year and we were a legit top five team once (different era, although Creek still dominated). But could not kick freaking extra points -- guess we don't teach those in the city! It's kind of funny they are still losing on a missed extra point. Don't think either will be good this year, Fort Collins lost a ton from a really good team last year, that's why no one was tweeting! For as little as I know, it does sound like it was a fun game.

 

[MileHigh]

I still don't really know what happened. My younger kid's longtime football coach is an assistant at Collins now, so I'll ask him at the next practice. Fort Collins was down 13-0 then 20-7 and won 21-20. There was a pick six in there. Other than that I have no idea! Lack of tweets!

It's funny, we were pretty good when I was in school. Went to the playoffs every year and we were a legit top five team once (different era, although Creek still dominated). But could not kick freaking extra points -- guess we don't teach those in the city! It's kind of funny they are still losing on a missed extra point. Don't think either will be good this year, Fort Collins lost a ton from a really good team last year, that's why no one was tweeting! For as little as I know, it does sound like it was a fun game.

I don't remember a lot of what was said, only it was a crazy second half.

Sounds like my high school. They were good back in the day. When there was only one high school in town. Now there are five and the former powerhouse (1987 national champions) hasn't been relevant for 30 years.

I've only had one Fort Collins game -- in 2016. Likely won't have them this year based on the schedule. But I'll make my twice-a-year trip up there next month.

 

[Sam Mills 51]

Are you saying the Lambkins are on the lam from the media?

(Not sure they were high profile back in their salad days ... )

 

[Roscablo]

Are you saying the Lambkins are on the lam from the media?

(Not sure they were high profile back in their salad days ... )

It was a Zero Week game in Denver. And we can Gannett cross thread if we want! That said, if it was at home there would have been something on it. Home football games from the four high schools don't go uncovered, at least currently. It's hit and miss on all other sports.

 

[HanSenSE]

Don't know what it's like in other states, but everywhere I've worked in California has a JV game preceding the varsity. One injury holding up the JV game can throw off the best plans. And don't get me started on extended halftime for Homecoming.

I usually tweet when I string to a hashtag the paper has. Was covering a Little League game last month and a follower asked if could set up a cloud and do play-by-play. Uh, no.

 

[I Should Coco]

Don't know what it's like in other states, but everywhere I've worked in California has a JV game preceding the varsity. One injury holding up the JV game can throw off the best plans. And don't get me started on extended halftime for Homecoming.

I usually tweet when I string to a hashtag the paper has. Was covering a Little League game last month and a follower asked if could set up a cloud and do play-by-play. Uh, no.

Some states in the Midwest (Illinois and Iowa) used to be like that with the JV games. I remember varsity games not kicking off until 8. No good.

 

[Roscablo]

Don't know what it's like in other states, but everywhere I've worked in California has a JV game preceding the varsity. One injury holding up the JV game can throw off the best plans. And don't get me started on extended halftime for Homecoming.

I usually tweet when I string to a hashtag the paper has. Was covering a Little League game last month and a follower asked if could set up a cloud and do play-by-play. Uh, no.

Here they are generally the day before or after the varsity game, depending on the day it is played, and at the opposite site of where varsity played. So if varsity was home, JV is on the road.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Yeah, they don't leave varsity start time to chance here, either. JVs on Monday, freshmen on Thursday.