University of Oklahoma Athletics
Mossman: Demise of Media Guides
July 30, 2009 | Athletics
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Mossman Prophecies | Archive |
One of the great debates raging these days in college football, admittedly somewhat under the radar, is the demise of media guides. And actually, the loss threatens far more than college football. It threatens every college sport.
The NCAA, which is us, is considering legislation that would ban the use of media guides in the recruiting process. That, coupled with shrinking budgets nationwide, has led many administrators to consider not printing media guides at all. Ohio State and Michigan are among the schools who are not producing guides for this school year. Oklahoma still is.
As a point of reference, OU spent slightly more than $156,000 on media guides during the 2008-09 school year. That includes all 21 sports and a bowl guide.
Naturally many reporters are up in arms about a potential ban, and I can see their point. Sure, we can place PDF files of media guides on our web sites, but think about today's national writer, most of whom work from home, and the fact that they'd be printing out 100 or so guides. It does seem reasonable to produce a functional guide at an economical price.
Most of us would agree that it's easier to thumb through a reference book than search through one online, or at least that's how the fossils of my generation view it.
The history of this problem is interesting. A few years ago, the NCAA passed legislation that restricted schools to mailing out only one, bound volume to any prospect. Prior to that change, both recruiting guides and media guides were produced and mailed to recruits.
Once the single-volume rule passed, the decision was made to commandeer the media guide and fill it to a large degree with recruiting material. Had that marriage never occurred, we probably wouldn't be talking about a ban today. Recruiting killed the media guide so to speak.
But, so did the green movement and our overall shift away from paper to a computer screen. Newspapers, magazines and, I assume, printers are suffering through this period of change more than most. These are interesting times as one generation raised on paper gives way to another that wants little or nothing to do with it.
For the short term, and as we bridge this gap, here's my hope …that the College Sports Information Directors of America and/or the NCAA will leave the door open for us to produce a book, with a reasonable page limit of something like 180 or so, that could be used for everything except recruiting.
Then, I would recommend that all schools agree to a standard format so that if someone wants to find the head coach's biography, they can locate it on page 50, regardless of whether they're looking at the media guide from Oklahoma or the one from USC. If "media" is going to be part of the title, then customizing the piece for nationwide media use seems appropriate.
Moreover, a continuation in a printed volume seems good for the fan too. Many purchase the guides or receive them in return for a donation to the scholarship fund. They too can reference all of the material online, but in the interest of covering naked coffee tables, let's leave them something to keep around the home or office.
Of course, teenagers across the country, if they can look up long enough from their hand-held devices, are cackling at any suggestion of continued paper use.
That's OK, we appreciate the change. We just need a little more time to get there.
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Mossman Prophecies | Archive |
Read an inside perspective from the OU Athletics Department on the latest Sooner sports topics. Senior Associate Athletics Director for Communications Kenny Mossman provides his thoughts in his online column at SoonerSports.com.
