Sunday, July 05, 2009

Princeton No Longer Will Publish Media Guides

I've always wondered about why Princeton didn't decide to discontinue the publication of media guides earlier. After all, after men's basketball (whose fortunes, while on the rise now, had waned over the past 10 years), who would read such guides other than a) the people on the team, b) parents and c) alums who played or who donate money. But the media? Hard to imagine that women's water polo or men's fencing has such an audience that they require the publication of a media guide.

I recall driving cross country about 25 years or so ago and stopping overnight near Omaha. One of the lead articles in the sports section was that the University of Nebraska (then a perennial top-5 program) had just published its media guide for football and that it was going on sale the following morning, with the line scheduled to begin at 8 a.m.

I laughed aloud, because in the Ivies (even back then) you couldn't sell media guides and, heck, who would stand in line for them? Trees will get saved, human capital will be re-deployed, and the greens at Old Nassau will be happy.

I haven't read whether the university is going to eliminate player profiles, though, on the internet. That would be a shame, and I doubt that the university would be going so far as to fail to publish pertinent facts on the website, if for the recruiting value if for no other reason.

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