Is Scout.com Crumbling?

It's interesting, but I wouldn't consider them crumbling. Remember, Scout.com is now owned by Fox Interactive Media. They have deep pockets behind them now.

It may have something to do with behind the scenes interference or a change in terms for sharing the advertising and subscriber fees. The team sites that went indie are for teams that probably have some the higher number of subscribers and can command more advertising money.

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This is just the tip of the iceberg. The way sites like Scout and Rivals treat their customers is downright unethical and it's finally catching up with them. Look for the sites that don't leave to have dwindling subscriber numbers.

A small example of this is when Scout scrapped their EZBoard message boards in favor of their own message boards. While this may seem harmless, this "upgrade" was in reality a huge downgrade in quality and service that has precipitated a mass exodus of fans from many of the Scout message boards in favor of the NCAAbbs.

Look for the problems to continue for Scout... and ironically some of their issues are the same issues that prompted the founders of Scout to leave Rivals and create their competing network in the first place.

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Some of what is happening can be read about at this lawsuit:

http://www.courthousenews.com/ScoutMedia.pdf

The Ohio State, Florida and USC sites have left and judging by the suit it looks like Stanford, Texas and Oklahoma are soon to follow.

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I've been looking at Rivals and Scout for a good 5-6 years now.

IMO comparing Scout to Rivals isn't really apples to apples. The traffic at Rivals is significantly higher, the content, the usability and the creature comforts are much better. But what I think is most important is that Rivals focuses on college sports. They don't care about the Jacksonville Jaguars and basically Scout does a crappy job for them so I don't see why they even try.

One thing that is very interesting to me is that Rivals has a very good national page for football IMO, and Scout has nothing. I actually think Rivals' college football page right now is the best out there. Definitely better than ESPN's but that's not saying much these days.

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Ohio State current Scout.com folks are the worst. "I can judge a player in 10 seconds" - Yea right. I can judge a terrible organization in 5 seconds

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The current scout guys did not leave Rivals. Rivals went belly up under their leadership. The money that the original owners of Rivals (Heckman, et. al) used to purchase a few SEC sites, turned around and used that money to buy the defunct Rivals at firesale prices.

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I publish a site on Rivals and can tell you that keeping our subscribers happy is our number one priority. We query our subscribers at least once a year to ask them for suggestions regarding additional features we could add, etc. We host tailgates and game-watches, we hold pre-game happy hours, we have rented buses and vans to provide our subscribers with transportation to away games ... all of this we have done to create an unparalleled sense of community. It is very rare that we have an subscriber cancel - when we do the primary reason is because a spouse gets upset that their significant other spends too much time on our message boards. Our subscribers know that we work for them and they can post questions for us or email us at any time and we will try to answer any request.

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I just wanted to add that, as a part of the original buyout of AllianceSports (the SEC sites mentioned in a post above), the way it went down is that Heckman was in charge of the "old Rivals.com" and not the current owners. I was the first publisher to have a contract with AllianceSports, I was part of the buyout in 2000, and I was the first publisher to sign with the new Rivals.com when our people took over. The current owners of Rivals.com had NOTHING to do with the bankruptcy that killed the old Rivals.com, but what they did do was take a buisness that had floundered and make it viable with our old AllianceSports model.

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You guys have it all wrong. The guys from Rivals were like, "You think we can run this thing into the ground?"
The one guy turned to the other one, and he was all, "I bet I can run it into the ground faster than that. You know?"
And then that guy responds, "Whatever, hoser."
So they both start running it into the ground in record form - I mean, who knew, right? Then this guy named Bergmen or Gilchrist or something, he steps in with his arms crossed, and you can tell he's not having it, right? Anyways, he reckons the SEC is tops, cream of the crop and all. Can I buy you a drink?, you know?

So eventually these other guys are like, "Hey, we like football and living vicariously through 19 year olds, so can we join your club or what?"

So then the first guys talked it over pretty good and figured it was cool. "But," they insisted, "Just so you know, the SEC is way better at everything than whatever conference you dudes are in, except for Notre Dane - because they're not in a conference or whatever."

The new guys were like, "Whatever guys, you guys play weak out of conference schedules, losers - and Notre Dame is ok, what with the gold helmets, and didn't Tom Brady play there or something?"

A guys like, "No, he went to Michigan, you're probably thinking of Joe Montana."

And that other guy says, "No way dumbass, Montana played for the 49ers."

Then a kind of scuffle ensued. Feelings were hurt, supposedly.

Then after a while, Bergmen w3n5 on r3cord, "I'm not into it anymore, I'm out. Peace."

And that was the last we heard of him until the wedding, right

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