Averaging over 30,000 pageviews per month in 2011, SalineHornets.com sets the gold standard
When Saline High School (SHS) Athletic Director Rob White has important information to give to his community, he wants the exchange to be quick and easy. To White, a website filled with twists and turns that confuse parents and fans is simply unacceptable.
His original idea was bold. White wanted Saline’s athletic website to rival that of the University of Michigan’s. To get there, White reached out to Varsity News Network (VNN) to supercharge Salinehornets.com.
VNN, a Grand Rapids based-company founded in 2010, offers high schools an online athletic system that not only makes things like schedules and directions easily accessible, but also incorporates sports journalism, setting a foundation for students to report on their school’s athletic programs. VNN is like ESPN.com for high schools.
This added journalistic perspective was especially important to White, due to the diminishing coverage Saline’s non-football sports had received.
Increasing coverage for student athletes
Saline, a town with a population around 9,000 people, is twenty miles away from Ann Arbor. Saline High School used to rely on Annarbor.com as the only source of sports coverage. This worked until Annarbor.com began cutting back on their staff, and in turn, cutting back on their high school sports coverage.
White grew tired of seeing his athletes’ stories fall through the cracks.
“Our JV soccer team had played 12 games without giving up a single goal, and nobody knew about it,” White said. “AnnArbor.com didn’t give them recognition, so we needed to do this ourselves.”
With a goal of covering all sports, paired with the VNN software system, all White had to do was find his sports journalists.
Sports journalism independent study
Saline no longer had a high school newspaper due to low enrollment, so White collaborated with the English department to develop an independent study class in sports journalism. It took off immediately.
Four student athletes jumped on the opportunity to cover sports for credit, and have since been responsible for covering all sports at Saline. After dividing up the events according to a calendar, each student’s class involves covering 2-3 games per week. They post articles, photos, and videos to SalineHornets.com and are graded (pass/fail) on a weekly basis.
White runs the sports journalism class seamlessly through VNN. The result has been constant media coverage of all 32 sports teams and the 1300 athletes they represent. More coverage than any other school in the area.
Saving time with proactive communication
VNN has also made it easier for coaches and parents to find the information they need. All of Saline’s athletic forms are well organized on SalineHornets.com, as are the schedules, rosters, and the latest scores for every Saline team. Visitors can keep up to date with the latest Saline news on Facebook and Twitter, or stay connected with a daily email newsletter, outreach which happens automatically through VNN. Articles from the local paper automatically fed into the website, making SalineHornets.com the one stop hub for information about Saline sports.
White has found that proactive communication means far less phone calls from people asking the same old questions. Where is the game? How much money do tickets cost? What was the score of last night’s game? These phone calls have all but disappeared, leaving White more time to spend with student athletes.
I just think about what I would want to see if I were a parent or fan, and I make sure it’s on our site,” White explains. “With VNN, we have the best website around.”
