24/7 Sports and recruiting coverage

[Duff Man]

You will notice we are putting links to the new 24/7 sports recruiting coverage in player profiles now. They might very well replace rivals here sooner rather than later, Alabama's rivals site essentially just switched over. Most of the head honchos at 24/7 Sports used to be at rivals.

24/7 should give us really good coverage on Texas recruiting and maybe California in the future. As of now, rivals still does the best job locally.

Just something to keep an eye on. Rivals, Scout, ESPN, and 24/7 cannot all survive. One or two are going to die out.

 

[Buffnik]

247 Sports is going to need a partner in sports media or they'll probably never get past the burn rate phase in their business. They're growing like crazy, though.

Rivals is paired up with yahoo.
Scout is paired up with Fox Sports.
ESPN is actually a takeover of Scouts Inc. that's now renamed ESPN Recruiting.
MaxPreps is paired up with CBS Sports.

CNN/SI writes on the topic of recruiting a lot, but doesn't have a proprietary database ranking system. I could see them going after 247.

PrepStar is still out there and independent, but it looks like they're going to die.

P.S. As an FYI that adds a little flavor to the Rivals/247 competition.... The 247 founder also founded Rivals, did that deal with yahoo, and his non-compete is over. He put the 247 offices in the same building in Tennessee where the Rivals home office is. It's a pretty aggressive situation, obviously.

 

[Darian3Hagan]

I hear AOL is adding content.

 

[Buffnik]

I hear AOL is adding content.

CNN/SI is an AOL Time Warner company. 247 would be a great acquisition target for them. I don't think they can do this well on their own.

 

[absinthe]

CNN/SI is an AOL Time Warner company. 247 would be a great acquisition target for them. I don't think they can do this well on their own.

makes perfect sense as an exit strategy.

 

[o_robbie]

Sweet. The more competition the better for news/updates/visits. YES!