Declaration of Independence

A big change was made today at my favorite college message board, OUInsider.com. The site has been part of the Scout.com network, until today, when the publishers of OU Insider reached the end of their contract with Scout, and broke away from Scout. There was much rejoicing in the Sooner Nation.

Scout.com and Rivals.com are networks of independent websites and magazines, providing premium recruiting content, and both pay and free message boards. Rivals is primarily a college site, while Scout is a network of both college and pro sites, dominated by college ones. Independent publishers partner with Scout to provide content, while Scout hosts the website and message boards. Scout also publishes fan magazines for many schools. Scout is now owned by Fox Interactive Media.

The Scout network has taken some major hits this year. Three of their most popular sites have declared their independence and have broken away from Scout, for various reasons. The leading sites for Ohio State (Bucknuts), Florida (Gator Country), and Oklahoma (OUInsider) have all broken away from Scout, and none have departed on good terms. The USC fan site, WeAreSC.com, has announced their departure. Word is that sites for Stanford and Texas are soon to follow. There have been differences of opinion on content for each of the sites, as the publishers did not experience the freedom they desired for each of their sites. Furthermore, Scout moved all their sites away from the popular EZboards platform, to their own message board software. This was met with anger from the masses. Currently, the leading site left on Scout is InsideCarolina.com, a North Carolina fan site.

This is a bitter divorce, and Gator Country, Bucknuts, The Bootleg (Stanford), OUInsider, and Inside Texas are now party to a lawsuit against Scout, due to disagreements over the terms and length of contracts, unpaid advertising monies, and major customer service issues. Scout is in danger of losing a large portion of their subscriber base. Ohio State, Florida, USC, and OU represent four of the last seven national football champions.

I applaud today's move by OUInsider. I lurk there every day, but rarely post. I have found a lot of independent sites that I find superior to a lot of what is found on the Scout and Rivals networks. This is purely a matter of opinion, because I don't subscribe to recruiting information, and only peruse message boards. Some good independent sites belong to schools such as TCU (KillerFrogs.com), Baylor (BaylorFans.com), Texas A&M (Texags.com), Nebraska (Huskerpedia.com), Arkansas (Hogville.net), and Virginia Tech (TechSideline.com).

Good luck to the new OUInsider.com!