Writing for the Nieman Lab prediction package, Dan Shanoff discusses LeBron James' son and high school sports coverage:
Heading into 2020, the DNA of intensive high school basketball coverage on Instagram, YouTube, and other non-traditional platforms is classic “shoe leather” observation, combined with modest cost requirements, new distribution platforms, and a seemingly limitless appetite from fans. 2020 won’t just be the year of Bronny — it’ll be the year when media organizations across the spectrum should invest further in the opportunity to experiment across the high school space.
So often when we talk about sports journalism and sports media, our focus is on the coverage of pro and men's college sports. Whether it's the popular press or the academic community, we tend to ignore the coverage of high-school sports.
In my dissertation from 2014, one of my most interesting findings was the fact that the great schism in sports journalism is not print vs. digital. It's high-school coverage vs. college/pros. For many reasons — staffing concerns, economic and technological limitations of both the markets and the audience — high school sports coverage has not been the center of innovation in sports journalism. In fact, it's often seen and held up as the paragon of traditional sports journalism values.
A big part of that is how the audience is viewed. The audience for high-school sports is generally seen as an older one, I think. It's grandparents who subscribe to the paper, parents who have a digital subscription. The idea has always been best articulated by my pal Mike Vaccaro, who has often said that while Derek Jeter's mom isn't clipping columns and posting them on her refrigerator, the high-school quarterback's mom is clipping game stories or features (or, to update that, posting them to Facebook).
But Shanoff's piece raises an important question - why are we not focusing our high-school sports coverage toward high-school students? Why are we not meeting them where they are — on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok? This isn't just at the level of Bronny, but for all high schools. What better way to start connecting with a young audience and turn them into lifelong readers?