The (Cornhusker) State of Football Coverage

For the modern Cornhusker fan, both at home and afar, there are a number of ways to get your Nebraska news fix: the Lincoln Journal-Star and Grand Island Independent both supplement their traditional print coverage with staff blogs, there are a couple of compelling podcasts and many more independent blogs that deliver news and commentary from a fan first perspective. There's even a blog devoted solely to hating Nebraska football just to keep everyone in check.

But there's one large piece missing from the above puzzle and it just happens to be Nebraska's biggest newspaper. Where's the Omaha World-Herald? Modern media continues to move towards highly specialized, timely content delivered on the consumer's schedule. It used to be that a consumer would have to sift through a pile of news, commentary and ads to get what they wanted but now, thanks to iPods, TiVo and the ilk, your average citizen can go days watching, reading and listening to only that which interests him. I'm not entirely convinced that this is a good development, but that's an argument for another time. What I'm interested in today is why the Omaha World-Herald seems to be headed in the opposite direction when it comes to Nebraska football coverage.

I haven't lived in Nebraska since 2002 and I came to count on the OWH's coverage during football season to keep me up to date on the games I couldn't see or only heard. Tom Shatel's weekly column provided perspective, the game recaps made my Sunday's in Boston feel like Sunday's at home.

Now, most of that is gone. Shatel columns haven't been available to non-subscribers for months now but I was willing to overlook that as long as I could read everything else. That's not the case anymore either.

Last week you may have noticed that certain stories about Nebraska's spring practices became "World-Hearld Subscriber Exclusives." While you can read this superb profile of Adi Kunalic by Dirk Chatelain, you cannot read the accompanying piece on special teams coaches or the NU Notes from that day. At least not for free.

Realizing that some people may be reading the World-Herald only for its football coverage, you can become an E-Edition subscriber for the duration of the season only for the low, low price of $56.00.

I can't really criticize the World-Herald for charging a fee. It's their content, they can do what they want with it, but I can question the validity of that decision. While the OWH is selling their "Nebraska College Football Coverage", you can sill get free columns and stories from almost every major newspaper in the country by simply registering with the site. You can get all the Big 12 coverage Texas has to offer free of charge, same goes for the Kansas City Star and the Denver Post.

Almost every major newspaper associated with the Big 12 will give you for free what the World-Herald is asking you to pay for, but it may not matter. Nebraska fans are notoriously willing to loosen the purse strings when it comes to their Cornhuskers, but there might be an even better solution: if you're going to charge for the traditional format, why not embrace the newest format and give it to us gratis?

The World-Herald isn't only unique among Big 12 newspapers in its pricing, it's also different in the fact that, to date, it has made no move to incorporate weblogs into their on-line content, and it's never been more noticeable than the past few weeks during fall camp.

Getting a meaningful story out of fall camp is like pitching a no-hitter; it's damn hard to do and far too infrequent but that's not the journalists fault. Bill Callahan lords over the information coming out of his camp like a war-time censor. Practices are closed to the media. A few players are offered up as sacrificial lambs at the end of each day to deliver their quotes and then the scavenging scribes are left to shred and share the scraps. That's the way it is and the end result is you read the same story three times.

Of course the difference is, at least when it comes to the Omaha World-Herald, you don't read that story until the next morning. Zack Bowman practiced in full-pads today. I know that because I read the LJS's Husker Extra page. The World-Herald? Well, they'll have that story for you tomorrow. What's the point of having an on-line edition of your newspaper if you're just going to run it like the print version?

Numerous publications throughout the country have proven that the Internet can be used to supplement the print edition not detract from it. What would it take for the OWH to take such a step? A little more server space, maybe a couple of extra bucks for the additional assignments for their staff? I know personally at least two or three people who would be willing to do it full-time for real cheap. (OWH: Call me!)

Until then, the World-Herald is going to continue to lag behind the rest of the up-to-date Internet sites out there, both professional and amateur. Their sports staff is as bright and talented as ever, but are they so good that your average Husker fan is willing to pay the price of admission and wait an extra day to get it?

Doesn't seem like a good bet to me. Here's an anecdote for you: Fifty-odd years ago horse racing was one of the top three sports in America when television came along and while baseball, basketball and football were relatively quick to embrace the new medium, the horse racing higher-ups were contemplating whether or not it would kill the sport. Quite the opposite actually. Staying put killed the sport.

I'm not asking the Omaha World-Herald to blaze the trail, that's already been done. I'm simply hoping they don't fall so far behind that the path becomes overgrown before they can find it.