NCAA = Media Guide Police

[NT80]

BTW, NT's 2004 football guide was 161 pages. If you are a fan of NT football or basketball and have never ordered a NT Media Guide, buy one, you'll love all the historical photos and info. They are available to the general public, not just to media as some think.

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Sports information directors scramble to trim media guides

By Steve Brown, Northern Star

July 12, 2005

(U-WIRE) DEKALB, Ill. -- It's one of those things most college football fans never see. Some don't even know it exists -- the media guide. It's the Bible of historical and statistical information. A glossy time capsule, filled with just about everything anyone would dream of knowing about an athletic program.

Sports information departments across the country spend their summers researching, compiling and polishing what become their babies -- the finished media guides, bound and shipped across the country to promote athletic teams.

But with a new NCAA ruling that placed a 208-page maximum on school media guides, their babies will be a bit smaller, much smaller for a school like Michigan.

The Wolverine football media guide was formerly a 416-page encyclopedia with everything from bowl-game history to Heisman Trophy winners. Now, all that will have to fit in half the space.

The cut wasn't so drastic for Northern Illinois Sports Information Director Mike Korcek, but his downsize from 2004's 256-page guide to this year's 208 wasn't an easy task.

"It's like staying up all night to do a 36-page term paper, and then finding out in the morning that you have to trim it to 18," said Korcek of the 48-page cut. "We're responsible for the history of the whole football program. It's hard to cut that many pages out."

Supporters of the NCAA rule hope that by placing the restriction on the guides, lower-income programs won't have to compete with schools that have higher athletic budgets.

Korcek disagreed.

The 21-year sports information boss estimated the page cut would save NIU $5,000-$6,000.

"That's not even half a scholarship -- what did they do?" Korcek said. "I think they're missing the boat here. Believe me, I'm a taxpayer, but in the scope of the NCAA, $5,000 is not a lot of money."

Last season, NIU distributed approximately 3,700 media guides, and will cut back to 3,600 for the fall. Historical football powerhouses like Notre Dame and Michigan send out more than 30,000.

Korcek argued that the cut hurts mid-level schools like NIU the most. A shorter media guide means less publicity to national-level sports media, he said.

"The No. 1 promotional piece for a school is not the schedule card, it's the media guide," Korcek said. "How did Turner the Burner hot sauce get to ESPN? We sent it to them."

Most frustrating to SIDs across the country who have spent the spring and summer frantically debating which of their pages will see the shredder is that the NCAA did not include SIDs in its decision to cut pages.

"Is a 614-page media guide obscene? There's no doubt in my mind, I understand that," Korcek said. "Our media guide takes a lot of work and effort, and when someone on the other side of the country decides, 'We're going to do this,' it hurts us."

Edited July 12, 2005 by NT80

[Monkeypox]

This is just dumb.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Only surprising part to me in the artilce is that Northern Illinois was having a problem cutting back on their, uh, history? What kind of history does NIU football have that needs to be drastically cut back? And NIU cut back from 3,700 to 3,600 copies distibuted? Are they sending them to large and medium media markets in Europe and Asia as well? Somethings not right here. (How many of these football medai guides do we print each year at NT)?

I am looking at our 2003 NT football media guide that seems to be one of our thickest in size we've had and it only has 144 pages. So what the hell is a MAC school putting in a media guide that has over 250 pages in it anyhow?

[ipEAGLE]

How about info on the Green Brigade? That would add another 5 pages. We could also put information about the Model T, the Bell and other traditions.

Edited July 12, 2005 by ipEAGLE

[GreenBat]

When I was the Sports Editor in Rockwall. I got media guides from all over the country and we were just a semi-weekly.

[EagleD]

This does sound dumb. As far as the number of copies made though, I can understand going through that many. If you want publicity, you have to provide the press with something. Plus each game there a tons of these given away in the press room. That's how I get mine.

[j0nat8an]

how do you get one?

[j0nat8an]

oh yeah, and how much $?

[Cerebus]

The average B12 media guide was almost 400 pages, that is insanity.

[NT80]

oh yeah, and how much $?

You can order it direct from the athletic dept/ticket office or get one there when they come out usually in August for the football edition, October for basketball....around $10.