A new interpretation of NCAA bylaws has transformed a popular college sports recruiting web site from a news service to a newsmaker.
Rivals.com posts a plethora of information about college football and college basketball prospects, everything its hard-core audiences with allegiances from Mississippi State to the University of Washington want to know about the next crop of football and basketball players that might don their favorite team colors.
For example, MSU is believed to be one of more than 25 schools actively pursuing Brian Kimbrow, a speedy rising senior out of Memphis East High School. Rivals will follow Kimbrow through 2012 National Signing Day, utilizing its network of writers to decide if he should remain a four-star prospect, or if his value as the nation”s top all-purpose back should increase his star rating.
Meanwhile, Kimbrow will be poked and prodded for any clues along the recruiting trail, taking fans along the ride.
While some of Rivals” basic content about Kimbrow and others are free, a considerable amount of non-scholastic video must be viewed with a monthly subscription, which is why aspects of the site are off limits to colleges.
The NCAA recently re-classified Rivals as a scouting service, a move that forced schools with premium subscriptions to cancel them to avoid penalties. Schools aren”t allowed to hold paid subscriptions to sites that offer any video other than high school and junior college game footage that is not available to the general public for free.
Rivals, as well as its main competition — Scout.com — boasts video of football camps and combines, as well as Amateur Athletic Union basketball games, behind its pay walls.
Gerry Ahern, the managing editor/colleges for Yahoo! Sports, the parent company of Rivals, disagrees with the ruling.
“We”ve established ourselves as a credible media organization that has done a lot of investigative reporting that I think has gained the company a lot of recognition,” Ahern said.
Ahern declined to say how many colleges had paid subscriptions before the ruling this spring, or how many subscriptions have been canceled since. He said Rivals has had open dialogue with the NCAA on the issue.
The reason behind the NCAA”s decision, though, might have less to do with Rivals as compared to less-credible recruiting services that have allegedly been utilized as a buffer to give programs access to club sports coaches as prospects. In March, NCAA officials believe Willie Lyles, of Texas, helped steer high school football prospects to the University of Oregon, which last spring paid his recruiting service $25,000.
“In the sport of men”s basketball, coaches and boosters were buying multiple copies of sham recruiting services for thousands of dollars a piece from AAU coaches and handlers,” wrote John Infante, the assistant director of compliance at Colorado State University. Infante is the current and former anonymous author of The Bylaw Blog, now featured on NCAA.org.
“In exchange for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, coaches would get names, height and weight, and generic rankings or ratings like stars or ”high major.” And, more importantly, they got access to the AAU coach or handler”s prospects.”
Infante said the NCAA has fought the growth of non-scholastic sports, a fight it appears to be losing. While AAU basketball and other club sports have continued to grow, college sport”s governing body has had little influence.
“By removing college coaches from many AAU gyms and football camps,” he wrote, “it has become the lawless wild west that the restrictions sought to avoid.”
While its clear Rivals lost more college program subscriptions than it gained, the ruling might not have had as big of an impact as first thought. Athletic department compliance officers at MSU and the University of Alabama said neither school paid for Rivals subscriptions in the three sports affected by the ruling: football, men”s basketball, and women”s basketball.
Rockey Felker, whose coaching career dates back to the 1970s, said while he scans the non-subscription web pages of Rivals.com — coaches compile information about recruits from a variety of sources, including media reports, teachers and neighbors, even fans — the site serves a different purpose than the companies colleges rely on during the evaluation process, a decision made easier with game footage.
“I don”t look at it as a recruiting service,” said Felker, the director of player personnel/high school relations for MSU football. “We”re not going to make any decisions we make based on any web site like that. They might have somebody as a four or five star. Sometimes we might not agree with that.”
Game footage is even more critical in today”s recruiting wars. The days are gone when Felker watched future Alabama offensive tackle Larry Rose play in 13 high school football games during his senior year of 1984. Under today”s regulations, Felker would only be able to watch Rose play once between September and December. Had Rose been injured during Felker”s lone trip to Gadsden, Ala., his four-year career with the Crimson Tide could have been in jeopardy
In fact, earning a scholarship without game footage today is almost as difficult as doing so without a standardized test score.
“We buy a lot of video. A lot of video,” said Bracky Brett, senior associate athletic director/compliance at MSU. “But it”s all game footage, which is all allowable. Non-scholastic video is of very little use to us. The actual game football and in-person evaluation drives the recruiting train in those sports.”
Phil Cunningham, assistant men”s basketball coach at MSU, said the staff once received a call about a potential prospect and within minutes, accessed his game footage and highlight video, increasing his chances of being recruited.
“Immediately I got a highlight tape from a YouTube link,” Cunningham said. “It really grabbed our attention.”
Jonathan Bowling, director of compliance at Alabama, said the average college sports program affected by the ruling has five to 10 paid subscriptions to recruiting services. That number, he added, can increase depending if the school recruits locally, regionally or, like many schools in the Southeastern Conference, nationally.
“The coaches have a ton of information coming in,” Bowling said. “Even if we did have subscriptions to Rivals or Scout, it wouldn”t have been the end of the world, so to speak.”
Volleyball is MSU”s only sport that purchases non-scholastic video, Brett said, a move that is covered by an NCAA waiver.
“I think we have to understand those web sites are operated by folks who are looking more from subscriptions from recruiting fans, the average fans that want to follow recruiting,” Brett said. “They couldn”t stay in business if all they had was universities as subscribers. There”s not enough of us.
“They have to rely on Joe Fan who wants to know everything about recruiting that”s going around. That drives their business. That”s why all that video is there to begin with.”
The information found on sites like Rivals varies from newspapers, which attempt to focus more on features. Here, every question leads to the most important answer: Where will you commit?
Does he have a favorite school?
Who is his favorite football player? (and will there be a correlation to his college choice)
Do you like cold weather?
Is starting as a freshman important to you?
“We do our best due diligence to give our users what they want, which is up-to-date information on teams, recruits, everything that pertains to the program they”re interested in,” Ahern said. “I think as the level of interest and the level of general coverage of these types of stories have progressed, Rivals has been at the forefront of that type of coverage.”
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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