Long-time WRNL Discord veteran here, first-time Cyclone Fanatic poster. Heard WRNL got denied Big 12 Media Days credentials. Frankly, that's a travesty. They make elite hype videos and do more for fan engagement than half the credentialed outlets. Is this some kind of anti-meme bias? Smells like gatekeeping, if you ask me.
Why doesn't Wide Right Natty Light get media credentials?
- Thread starter LordCytheWise
- Start date
Sounds more like they just don't hand out media credentials to all of the hobbyists and parttime sports enthusiasts that are affiliated with minor or dying web sites. It's a minor blog.
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WRNL was started with the expressed intention of never being credentialed. No idea where the current owners stand, but the OGs had less than no interest in it.
I actually think one generation of operators DID get credentialed for a year or two. Just depends on how much the current crew wants to pursue it.
I'd tell you not to be a dickhead @CyCrazy - but we all know that's your nature
I'd tell you not to be a dickhead @CyCrazy - but we all know that's your nature
I actually think one generation of operators DID get credentialed for a year or two. Just depends on how much the current crew wants to pursue it.
I'd tell you not to be a dickhead @CyCrazy - but we all know that's your nature
I can live with that.
For a potential super fan, don’t they know our colors are cardinal and gold?? What a poser.
Sounds like a great reason for a “things that probably happened at B12 media days” satire article to me.
Yep. They peaked when they labeled Coach Heacock’s unit the Red Wedding, relegating the likes of the Blackshirts and the Wrecking Crew to also-ran status as iconic nicknames.
So here's the deal.
WRNL did have a credential for the 2019 football season. Aiden Wyatt and Jared Larson largely shared duties covering the game in the box, but I did use the pass myself for the home finale against Kansas. Once COVID happened and nobody went to games, we obviously did not attempt to get a new pass, and since then have just chosen not to apply for one.
Iowa State is fairly strict on press box behavior, and it is a major taboo to cheer for something any louder than in a conversational volume since there are people trying to do their job. Essentially, you're not really allowed to be a fan in the press box, which is significantly less fun than cheering in the stands. Hand in hand with that is essentially a soft policy of no drinking before the games, which eliminates tailgating. Everyone at WRNL likes tailgating and yelling in the stands during the games, so we just aren't interested in getting a pass for the season.
The other part of this is that Iowa State has a new SID since then. Mike Green, the former SID, was a reader of WRNL and gave us a pass as a gesture of good faith (which I was very appreciative of). However, I don't really have any sort of relationship with the current SID Matt Shoultz, so we don't really have the benefit of the doubt we previously had.
On a wild hair, I applied for a Big 12 Media Days credential knowing that typically that event is the most welcoming to first-time applicants and non-traditional media outlets. I applied for the pass under the outlet I do a YouTube show for, The Voice of College Football, thinking that a general college football outlet with a decent following would have a better shot of getting a pass than a fan-run blog for a specific team, which would then need to be approved by that school's SID.
I was denied that credential on the basis of not covering the Big 12 enough, and when I mentioned that I had covered Iowa State for most of a decade with another outlet (WRNL/SB Nation), they said that credentials get sent to the schools and are approved by them. This justification obviously doesn't make sense, given that the person at the Big 12 had no idea I was affiliated with Iowa State until after I had been declined a crednetial. However, I didn't really press too much further since it's not a big deal to me, given that the whole thing is streamed online anyways.
In summary, WRNL has been given a credential before, and we have chosen not to pursue any credentials for full seasons on the basis of wanting to be able to tailgate and have the full fan experience. If someday we decide we want to pursue a credential again, I'm confident we would be able to do so after talking with Mr. Shoultz about it. Not getting a credential for Big 12 Media Days is ultimately not a big deal, and is mostly just the result of us not having really tried to have a pass at Iowa State for the last five seasons.
WRNL did have a credential for the 2019 football season. Aiden Wyatt and Jared Larson largely shared duties covering the game in the box, but I did use the pass myself for the home finale against Kansas. Once COVID happened and nobody went to games, we obviously did not attempt to get a new pass, and since then have just chosen not to apply for one.
Iowa State is fairly strict on press box behavior, and it is a major taboo to cheer for something any louder than in a conversational volume since there are people trying to do their job. Essentially, you're not really allowed to be a fan in the press box, which is significantly less fun than cheering in the stands. Hand in hand with that is essentially a soft policy of no drinking before the games, which eliminates tailgating. Everyone at WRNL likes tailgating and yelling in the stands during the games, so we just aren't interested in getting a pass for the season.
The other part of this is that Iowa State has a new SID since then. Mike Green, the former SID, was a reader of WRNL and gave us a pass as a gesture of good faith (which I was very appreciative of). However, I don't really have any sort of relationship with the current SID Matt Shoultz, so we don't really have the benefit of the doubt we previously had.
On a wild hair, I applied for a Big 12 Media Days credential knowing that typically that event is the most welcoming to first-time applicants and non-traditional media outlets. I applied for the pass under the outlet I do a YouTube show for, The Voice of College Football, thinking that a general college football outlet with a decent following would have a better shot of getting a pass than a fan-run blog for a specific team, which would then need to be approved by that school's SID.
I was denied that credential on the basis of not covering the Big 12 enough, and when I mentioned that I had covered Iowa State for most of a decade with another outlet (WRNL/SB Nation), they said that credentials get sent to the schools and are approved by them. This justification obviously doesn't make sense, given that the person at the Big 12 had no idea I was affiliated with Iowa State until after I had been declined a crednetial. However, I didn't really press too much further since it's not a big deal to me, given that the whole thing is streamed online anyways.
In summary, WRNL has been given a credential before, and we have chosen not to pursue any credentials for full seasons on the basis of wanting to be able to tailgate and have the full fan experience. If someday we decide we want to pursue a credential again, I'm confident we would be able to do so after talking with Mr. Shoultz about it. Not getting a credential for Big 12 Media Days is ultimately not a big deal, and is mostly just the result of us not having really tried to have a pass at Iowa State for the last five seasons.
Great insight. I’ve not frequented any SBNstion sites for some time, but was fairly active for years. It *seems* anecdotally that SBNation has declined substantially in recent years.
Seemed like they put a premium on creating certain kinds of content and the fan engagement was less incentivized.
Has anything changed over the last 5-7 years? Is my read accurate or off?
I think your read is good, but just missing the proper context.
SB Nation first started showing major cracks during COVID when they let go of some really big names like Caroline Darney, Matt Brown, Spencer Hall, and others. For a lot of us blogs that had been enjoying a vibrant community with awesome leadership, that was a major red flag. Since then, SB Nation has largely felt like a ghost ship, and we're just floating along doing our thing.
They've also shut down a number of the lower-performing college sites in the last few years. Just in the Big 12, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Cincinnati, and Utah have all lost their sites, and there are lots of others around the country that have gone by the wayside. WRNL has always done pretty well engagement-wise, but it's not fun having to work under the cloud of your parent company feeling like it's on life support, even if the suits in New York say everything is fine and dandy.
SB Nation also changed the look and layout of the sites in that time frame, which is really decreased functionality. The newer comment sections are inferior to the old ones, FanPosts are difficult to find and basically invisible on mobile devices, and FanShots are completely gone. They deoptimized fan engagement in order to create more ad space.
Media trends have also changed dramatically in that time span. Written content is no longer the most popular way to consume information, and even audio-only podcasts have ceded a tremendous amount of market share to video content. We've done the best we can to try to evolve with the times, but unfortunately, SB Nation/Vox is still dead-set on only really supporting written content and driving engagement through article comments alone. The world is changing around them and they have mostly refused to adapt.
We get absolutely zero support for any content we do off the site. Any podcasts or video content we produce is done on our own (mostly unpaid) time and completely out of our own pockets. Worse yet, SB Nation doesn't give me anywhere near enough of a budget to properly pay contributors for helping, so I can't in good conscience really motivate them to write stuff if they're not actively looking to do so. I can afford to pay a small monthly stipend to a couple of contributors that help out with social media, pods, videos, etc., but that's it. I have personally paid out of pocket for probably 80% of the video and recording equipment we have available.
We first created our Discord server a few years ago to attempt to change with the times and find a way to keep and preserve our community, and it has largely been a resounding success. Obviously, I can't blame anyone for not wanting to sign up for yet another account on another social media website, but those that did make the jump have created vibrant, active chat rooms that feel every bit as alive and engaging as any of the old comment sections. I would argue that it feels more like a "community" than any of our old comment sections did since people are able to have more natural conversations with each other.
We're doing our best to meet the needs of the modern media landscape while getting absolutely zero support from the mothership. Oh, and they're changing the layout of the site again in about a month, and are also switching back to the Content Management System they used before I got to WRNL in 2017 because their in-house one was so unreliable.
SB Nation is pretty much toast. I THINK (not really sure) they made a change related to how content creators get paid and most of them just bailed. There was some FANTASTIC stuff out there on SB Nation back in the day. Spencer Hall and the EDSBS was really fun.
This still makes me laugh so hard I cry, highly recommend if you have 30 minutes to read it: Death of the NBA
As far as WRNL, imho the peak was the Big12 previews written in Cormac McCarthy's voice. Those were really good pieces of writing and hilarious.
Although "America Needs Another Lawyer" was also great, in a totally different way.
edit- the current stuff just isn't my bag. I'm too old to watch guys play video game season simulations and such. Not saying its bad, just not my cup of tea.
That’s totally fair. I will say that some of the gaming stuff is mostly just something fun I do on the side (really just a Twitch stream every few months at this point), and our main content is still the previews, recaps, and news stuff that we’ve always done. But like I said, people like what they like, and that’s totally cool. I’m just trying to some other different stuff so that we’re not just doing exactly what Cyclone Fanatic is doing.
they still create a bunch of podcasts and as also said the honestly elite hype vids somewhat still.
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