Coverage of High School Sports

Yappi

Yappi

Go Buckeyes
I talked to a prolific reporter a couple months ago about coverage of HS sports. The thing that struck me was that he was going to cover a local girls basketball game because he would likely be the only reporter there. On the flip side, he had an opportunity to cover a very popular boys basketball game on the same night and decided not to go to it because there would be 30 other reporters* covering the game.

The treatment he would receive from the two different venues was completely different. At the girls game, they were excited to have him and treated him very well. At the boys game, he would be jammed into a small space and asking for any favors would usually cause him problems.

Now to my own personal story, I typically do previews for football, boys and girls basketball, baseball, and softball. It takes alot of time and energy and there is no monetary benefit. I enjoy doing them and reading the information that the coaches provide. Recently, I was working on the softball previews and I received messages back from several of the coaches thanking me for doing the previews and bringing awareness to the game. That is the type of feedback that makes me want to cover schools/sports more whether they are state champions or they don't win a game.

For the other sports, I occasionally get a thank you but it is fairly rare. While football is the most popular sport on here, it is also the most difficult. I have received two complaints from coaches that they refused to participate. Both were from schools that have a small following on here but not in the top 50. The one complaint was something that was said in one of the posts about an assistant coach. The post was removed quickly but the fact that it was said at all was too much for this school. The other complaint was nothing specific but didn't like that people could post negative things (ex. pass defense is weak) while "hiding" behind a screen name. He would not participate in the football previews until the site stopped allowing anonymous posting. I know that the internet has changed drastically and some younger people do not value anonymity, but there are still plenty that rely on it. It allows for more free flow of information. The Bishop Sycamore story is a good example.

I thought this could be an interesting topic to discuss in the offseason. Where do you think coverage of HS is going? Is it a good direction? Bad direction? More of the same? Or just different?
 
 
I will speak more in volume for my area of the state. We are too south to be covered by many Columbus news stations other than an occasionally one off game. And too far east to be covered by any Cincinnati stations. Some are even too north to get coverage from the Huntington WV metro. A huge help has been what is going on at Ohio University. Their journalism program has progressively crept into the South Central portion in counties such as Pike,Ross, Vinton and Jackson as well as being in Athens Meigs and Gallia counties. These are places that outside of our own forum most scores you won’t see yourself without going to Joe Eitel and very few get reported into the Columbus area news stations which is what I get.

On top of this we also have Southern Ohios Sports Authority who is on it from pretty much the listed counties from above including Pickaway, Fayette, Adams, Scioto, Lawrence.
While our area has been told numerous times that the quality of football is probably the worst in the state, most coaches are very happy to have any coverage of their game sent to the masses
 
Yappi said:
I talked to a prolific reporter a couple months ago about coverage of HS sports. The thing that struck me was that he was going to cover a local girls basketball game because he would likely be the only reporter there. On the flip side, he had an opportunity to cover a very popular boys basketball game on the same night and decided not to go to it because there would be 30 other reporters* covering the game.

The treatment he would receive from the two different venues was completely different. At the girls game, they were excited to have him and treated him very well. At the boys game, he would be jammed into a small space and asking for any favors would usually cause him problems.

Now to my own personal story, I typically do previews for football, boys and girls basketball, baseball, and softball. It takes alot of time and energy and there is no monetary benefit. I enjoy doing them and reading the information that the coaches provide. Recently, I was working on the softball previews and I received messages back from several of the coaches thanking me for doing the previews and bringing awareness to the game. That is the type of feedback that makes me want to cover schools/sports more whether they are state champions or they don't win a game.

For the other sports, I occasionally get a thank you but it is fairly rare. While football is the most popular sport on here, it is also the most difficult. I have received two complaints from coaches that they refused to participate. Both were from schools that have a small following on here but not in the top 50. The one complaint was something that was said in one of the posts about an assistant coach. The post was removed quickly but the fact that it was said at all was too much for this school. The other complaint was nothing specific but didn't like that people could post negative things (ex. pass defense is weak) while "hiding" behind a screen name. He would not participate in the football previews until the site stopped allowing anonymous posting. I know that the internet has changed drastically and some younger people do not value anonymity, but there are still plenty that rely on it. It allows for more free flow of information. The Bishop Sycamore story is a good example.

I thought this could be an interesting topic to discuss in the offseason. Where do you think coverage of HS is going? Is it a good direction? Bad direction? More of the same? Or just different?
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Well, as you know, I've done photography for Yappi.com and several other sites. Primarily PA Football News, but also TXHSFB.net and Magnitude Sports. In my experience, my anecdotal tales mirror his observation.

I primarily do photography, but in the absence of someone there writing, I will also write something up about the game, even if just a blurb with a few key players or scores mentioned from my notes. But photography is the #1 purpose. Other than playoffs and subsequent state finals, I try to avoid the 'major games' because of that very same reason.

For example, you'll have 20 games nearby and every single outlet will focus on just one or two 'big games' and then a smattering of other games. Those other games are usually covered by stringers or from something sent in from the HC or AD. The problem is you wind up with 5-10 different perspectives of the same game. Nobody is going to read/watch every report on that specific game. Anyone interest will have their preferred outlet that they'll seek out info from, and then maybe one or two other 'major' publications, and move on. That 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, etc reporter there is not getting traction.

However, if you go to a game where NO ONE else is at, you will get eyeballs on your work. Especially when the schools know you're there. Whether they cater to you or not, the word gets out who is there covering their game. And they remember that, too.

I've had many teams over the years talk to me at the game or after the game effusively thanking me for attending and covering their game due to the sheer lack of local/regional coverage of their teams. They're either too far away or just not 'good enough' to warrant sending a reporter or photographer.

The number of places I've been that I now have a standing invitation to return to any of their games has only grown over the years. And it's almost always because I was the only reporter/photographer at the game. And I try to follow through on them when I can.

As for coverage today, I'm very disappointed with the television recaps on Friday. Instead of highlights of the game, they send the same crew to as many games as possible through a Friday night. Get a few minutes of video, and move on to the next game. It gives them some highlights but if something good happened here or there, they might simply not be there to catch it. A great play, a great comeback, overtime, etc. And even those 'highlighted games' are become more and more infrequent.

For some reason local channels have been focusing more and more on national news and not the local news that people actually care about. You see it with local papers. With everyone easily searchable online, why would local papers prioritize articles from the AP wire instead of a handful of locally relevant events and sports?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1698486821150244908

Went to a game in South Dakota this year. First game of the year. Got to Wilmot well before kickoff and drove around. Stopped at the only gas station and got the local paper. A weekly. It was published with the date of the game on a Thursday. I figured there'd be something about the game. For the entire paper, there was a 2"x2" square that said the game Thursday night in Wilmot. That was it. Nothing about the game. Nothing about the schedule. Players. Interview, prognostication, etc. Nothing. Just literally one or two sentences say a game was Thursday night in Wilmot. And being a weekly paper, there wasn't anything else for that week about the upcoming game. Sure, the week before could have. But if it's a local paper with only one or two people contributing articles, how/why wouldn't they have anything else about local sports? Even if it's just schedule and score recaps?
 
I have covered a lot of sports through the years. Often I am the only reporter (or one of two or three) at a football game, and the treatment is awfully nice. But I always received the most compliments for my reporting of track and field and cross country. If you understand and highlight a "non-big time" sport, the fans and parents really appreciate it.
 
Coverage is dying. Newspapers are dying and the coverage dying with it. At one time Springfield had two papers,New Carlisle had one and Dayton two. They had a press time of ten o’clock or so that could be stretched someon Friday or Saturday. Now one paper with a press ttime of about 8 because the press is in Indianapolis. Friday games don’t get reported till Sunday and Saturday games are lucky to get a paragraph and boxscore on Monday. Five tv stations and the biggest one has no sports dept now. Number 2 does sports well for it and a sister station. But tv is 6 minutes and is mostly focused on the D1-2 schools or MSML. Yes sports coverage is dying.
 
Yappi said:
I talked to a prolific reporter a couple months ago about coverage of HS sports. The thing that struck me was that he was going to cover a local girls basketball game because he would likely be the only reporter there. On the flip side, he had an opportunity to cover a very popular boys basketball game on the same night and decided not to go to it because there would be 30 other reporters* covering the game.

The treatment he would receive from the two different venues was completely different. At the girls game, they were excited to have him and treated him very well. At the boys game, he would be jammed into a small space and asking for any favors would usually cause him problems.

Now to my own personal story, I typically do previews for football, boys and girls basketball, baseball, and softball. It takes alot of time and energy and there is no monetary benefit. I enjoy doing them and reading the information that the coaches provide. Recently, I was working on the softball previews and I received messages back from several of the coaches thanking me for doing the previews and bringing awareness to the game. That is the type of feedback that makes me want to cover schools/sports more whether they are state champions or they don't win a game.

For the other sports, I occasionally get a thank you but it is fairly rare. While football is the most popular sport on here, it is also the most difficult. I have received two complaints from coaches that they refused to participate. Both were from schools that have a small following on here but not in the top 50. The one complaint was something that was said in one of the posts about an assistant coach. The post was removed quickly but the fact that it was said at all was too much for this school. The other complaint was nothing specific but didn't like that people could post negative things (ex. pass defense is weak) while "hiding" behind a screen name. He would not participate in the football previews until the site stopped allowing anonymous posting. I know that the internet has changed drastically and some younger people do not value anonymity, but there are still plenty that rely on it. It allows for more free flow of information. The Bishop Sycamore story is a good example.

I thought this could be an interesting topic to discuss in the offseasea,on. Where do you think coverage of HS is going? Is it a good direction? Bad direction? More of the same? Or just different?
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I think the coverage in my area - summit and portage counties is very good but because of staff cutbacks the coverage is light and you have to wait until Sunday to get write ups and results from Friday's games and if your school played on a Saturday you have to wait until Tuesday because the Akron and Kent/Ravenna papers are subscription only on Monday's. Also, the newspapers don't put out the preview magazines before the season starts previewing teams, coaches and players along with every teams schedule. You have to go online to find all that and it's at times hard to find it online.
 
It's been that way for over 25 years around Cleveland outside of Friday night football. I was hoping to be the exclusive correspondent when I began writing for the area in the early 1990s.
 
I think if you are going to post articles or pics we should start using our real names.
That way the coaches who use the (AND IT IS TRUE) hiding behind a screen name complain would no longer be valid.
 
The Daily Standard in Celina Ohio continues to do a fantastic job at covering high school sports.

WBL and the MAC, and it helps the MAC has seen a little success over the years.


They do a preview of each season, spring, fall, winter and it's always in depth and something everyone looks forward to.

Newspapers needed to pivot as people get their news elsewhere so give them something you cannot easily get elsewhwre....HS sports.

They even cover summer ACME baseball.
 
Organizations like The OH Report that are live streaming games on YouTube and also hosting shows throughout the week interviewing coaches and players in different formats and having on air talent analyzing things is great. I hope it's a profitable endeavor because I'd like to see it more widespread.
 
Also a shout our in NW ohio to TV44.
They are a Christian based TV station that started to replay games as early as 91 or so.

It has grown tremendously over the yrs and they formed the WOSN. Western Ohio Sports Network.
They carry countless games and events and quite a few are even live. Their crew does a fantastic job.

Up until this year they had the beat Friday night highlight show one could imagine, an hour plus and in studio guests.

They didn't do that this year and focused more on having additional games
 
The local newspaper gives very few stories on local sports but fortunately we have 3 local radio stations that do a great job broadcasting local games. All Dover and phila games are broadcasted,one on radio one on line if they are playing at the same time.
 
Thavoice said:
Also a shout our in NW ohio to TV44.
They are a Christian based TV station that started to replay games as early as 91 or so.

It has grown tremendously over the yrs and they formed the WOSN. Western Ohio Sports Network.
They carry countless games and events and quite a few are even live. Their crew does a fantastic job.

Up until this year they had the beat Friday night highlight show one could imagine, an hour plus and in studio guests.

They didn't do that this year and focused more on having additional games
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TV44 has been absolutely amazing for NW / west central Ohio over the decades. I forget if it was 2022 or 2021 over Christmas break I was back home in Lima and they were showing high profile basketball games from back in the late 90s / early 00s and it was fun to watch and reminisce some of those games from 20-25 years ago.

Not sure when exactly they began doing games but here is a brief intro clip from a Lima Senior / Findlay game as early as December 1990.

 
scbuckeye99 said:
TV44 has been absolutely amazing for NW / west central Ohio over the decades. I forget if it was 2022 or 2021 over Christmas break I was back home in Lima and they were showing high profile basketball games from back in the late 90s / early 00s and it was fun to watch and reminisce some of those games from 20-25 years ago.

Not sure when exactly they began doing games but here is a brief intro clip from a Lima Senior / Findlay game as early as December 1990.

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Last night they had the lebum James asvsm vs OG from early 2000s.

Every couple.yrs I see the game from 90 or 91 that I played in haha. I still recall tv44 setting up the eqt during our pregame and wondered wth was going on
 
It seems like the most populated areas of the state have the least amount of media coverage. Rural areas all seem to have local papers and stations that give good coverage of their schools. Yappi seems to be much more balanced.
 
scbuckeye99 said:
TV44 has been absolutely amazing for NW / west central Ohio over the decades. I forget if it was 2022 or 2021 over Christmas break I was back home in Lima and they were showing high profile basketball games from back in the late 90s / early 00s and it was fun to watch and reminisce some of those games from 20-25 years ago.

Not sure when exactly they began doing games but here is a brief intro clip from a Lima Senior / Findlay game as early as December 1990.

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Channel 35 in Lima has more highlights now than what 44 does, but 44 does whole game broadcasts and 35 does not. Is there an archive for the old Channel 25 games? They did games through the early 2000s, not sure if those exist anymore?
 
Anymore Cincinnati has poor coverage. Mike Dwyer tries, but he doesn't ever ask the hard questions. The guy at Fox 19 do good coverage on Friday Night for football/basketball. The Cincinnati Enquirer is dying, it might already be dead and no one has told us.

Cincinnati TV cover too much. Bengals, Reds, FC, UC, XU, UK, NKU, Miami, Cyclones and many more. So the local media doesn't cover HS sports except for Friday Nights.

I find more info out from Yappi than I do from local media. It is sad because back in the late 90s coverage was good.
 
ctown14 said:
Channel 35 in Lima has more highlights now than what 44 does, but 44 does whole game broadcasts and 35 does not. Is there an archive for the old Channel 25 games? They did games through the early 2000s, not sure if those exist anymore?
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For years I've toyed with the idea of contacting TV44 to see if I could purchase their archive or what that might cost haha. I could easily burn a month in front of the TV watching games from the 90s / early 00s that they covered.

I do vaguely remember channel 25 doing games, but only because you brought it up haha. Hadn't thought of that channel in years.
 
ctown14 said:
Channel 35 in Lima has more highlights now than what 44 does, but 44 does whole game broadcasts and 35 does not. Is there an archive for the old Channel 25 games? They did games through the early 2000s, not sure if those exist anymore?
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Here an old classic from Fox 25:

 
scbuckeye99 said:
For years I've toyed with the idea of contacting TV44 to see if I could purchase their archive or what that might cost haha. I could easily burn a month in front of the TV watching games from the 90s / early 00s that they covered.

I do vaguely remember channel 25 doing games, but only because you brought it up haha. Hadn't thought of that channel in years.
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At one point you could go online and buy single games on 44’s website.

I was talking about the Channel 25 archive, where did that go? Sadly it was probably wiped.

Edit- The current channel 35 was channel 25 for several years. I bet you would have to contact channel 35 to see what games they have.
 
ctown14 said:
At one point you could go online and buy single games on 44’s website.

I was talking about the Channel 25 archive, where did that go? Sadly it was probably wiped.

Edit- The current channel 35 was channel 25 for several years. I bet you would have to contact channel 35 to see what games they have.
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Yea I do kinda remember TV44's website offering single game purchases. Still would be cool to get our hands on their entire library.
 
Wayne County is an area that still loves its high school sports, especially the Wayne County Athletic League. The local newspaper was bought out by Gannett, leading to a cut in local sports coverage. Being away from metro areas, radio station WQKT remains key, with football & basketball play-by-play by Mike Breckenridge. It appears that the high school sports broadcasts will continue even after the station is otherwise changing formats after recently being bought out. In a sign of the times, a one-man "Wayne County Sports" social media presence is also providing publicity, and not just for football & basketball.
 
Sykotyk said:
For some reason local channels have been focusing more and more on national news and not the local news that people actually care about. You see it with local papers. With everyone easily searchable online, why would local papers prioritize articles from the AP wire instead of a handful of locally relevant events and sports?
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I've noticed this too, and I don't understand it at all. If I want to read about the Buckeyes, I'm going to ESPN or Eleven Warriors, not my local newspaper that's 2 hours away from Columbus, but I will read just about every single high school football article in my area - and I know I'm not alone in that way
 
Hometown Stations of Lima deserves a shoutout too for their coverage. They have constant year-round coverage of as many local high schools as they can handle, and they cover every sport. One of my favorite parts of every year is watching their local football previews every night through August. Throughout the season and especially into the playoffs they'll stop by teams practices to do small "special" segments that I always enjoy watching
 
Vincent and Regina said:
Anymore Cincinnati has poor coverage. Mike Dwyer tries, but he doesn't ever ask the hard questions. The guy at Fox 19 do good coverage on Friday Night for football/basketball. The Cincinnati Enquirer is dying, it might already be dead and no one has told us.

Cincinnati TV cover too much. Bengals, Reds, FC, UC, XU, UK, NKU, Miami, Cyclones and many more. So the local media doesn't cover HS sports except for Friday Nights.

I find more info out from Yappi than I do from local media. It is sad because back in the late 90s coverage was good.
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Well put.

I remember one of the issues with the Enquirer was somewhere around 10-12years or so ago, The Enquirer changed where it was printed. Instead of being printed in Cincy, it is now printed in Columbus. I remember when this happened as one of my jobs was calling in our score, stats, storyline to the Enquirer for home games. And when that switch happened, the deadline changed to 10pm instead of Midnight. Well, our games were not over by 10pm. So, you would call in, report as you did before and it wouldn't be in the Saturday newspaper as it was previously (only a couple games where a beat reporter went to was), and then on Sundays, there'd be little to nothing because it was the Sunday paper and it would get buried and you'd be lucky to get a box score.

The Enquirer created their own demise with their abysmal business decisions and awful writing. It's really hard to read any story without glaring grammatical, spelling, or factual errors, and it was that way well before they let go most of their staff and moved printing operations to Columbus.

Fox 19 does a great job and they are fun to watch. I wish they'd do a 45 minute or even hour long Friday night show because of how entertaining they are; but I understand the crazy time constraints of cutting, editing, writing scripts for the dozen plus games they have highlights for.
 
serpico said:
WOSN has some of its games on YouTube, but nothing from the 90s or 00s.
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I have VHS tapes of LOTS of Delphos SJ games from WTLW and Ch. 25. I bought a VHS to DVD transfer machine and got a lot of them on DVD, but not all. Delphos also had a local cable channel and DSJ had a tv programming class for a long time. They did a Coaches Corner show every week and would interview coaches and players and replay a football or basketball game. I have a lot of those on tape and DVD as well.
 
Blue Jay Fan said:
I have VHS tapes of LOTS of Delphos SJ games from WTLW and Ch. 25. I bought a VHS to DVD transfer machine and got a lot of them on DVD, but not all. Delphos also had a local cable channel and DSJ had a tv programming class for a long time. They did a Coaches Corner show every week and would interview coaches and players and replay a football or basketball game. I have a lot of those on tape and DVD as well.
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Do you have the 2003 Crestview vs DSJ district game at Elida where the Knights won on a last second shot? I believe it was on Channel 25.
 
I'll chime in my 0.02 here.

As far as Northeast Ohio, the Youngstown area does a solid job of covering sports, with multiple outlets including WFMJ, WKBN, YSN Live to name a few. They do a great job with football IMO, as well as basketball and baseball. A couple of outlets even have their own All-Star basketball games after the season ends, which is great to see.

Compare that to the Cleveland area, where outside of football, until recently, TV stations by and large won't go out of their way to cover basketball (or even winter sports in general), nowadays, except for the occasional story. (at least not to the extent of the two Y-Town stations). Spring coverage is non-existent.

I personally try to go out of my way to cover teams that don't usually get a lot of coverage with basketball, and enjoy doing it as well. I like seeing all the different styles and strategies the teams employ.
 
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