Re: From the Publisher: Why Hawgs Illustrated merged

[hillcresthog]

“We are in the process of changing the initial price structure for the new website at Whole Hog Sports. I hope to offer an annual fee that most will think is appropriate that gets you Whole Hog Sports, Powered by Hawgs Illustrated as well as the Hawgs Illustrated magazine. I’ve been told this morning that will happen.”

Thanks for the explanation Clay. Will there be an option that will be $99 or less annually? I think that may be the price point for many of us.

[cleverhog]

Clays’ older than dirt; we gotta have patience with him.

In all seriousness, if the new board would assimilate the previous board’s “hover to read” and listing of each reply, I would be overjoyed.

[pjhawg]

It all makes sense. I would have made the same decision.

[lifelongfan]

Thanks, Clay. Your account of Scouts slighting of Montaric Brown perfectly illustrated the anti-Arkansas bias I have long perceived in Scouts coverage of the state. It wasn’t that just hated the U of A - which they did - they hated every athlete in Arkansas whether they went to the U of A or not. What really incensed me last year was their rating of Sosa Agim. On ESPN, the 9th best athlete in the nation; on Scout, the 129th. Like there were 120 guys ESPN missed. Who can put up with that? Almost criminal. Very, very good riddance.

[Hogmodo]

No problem with you leaving Scout. That makes sense. Despite promises of better rates to come, there is a $180 per year projected price out there with very little increased value to justify it.

1. Most posters on insider websites despise Wally Hall and don’t see anything (except Richard Davenport) about joining up with the ADG as any increased value at all.
2. Richard Davenport is available free on Hogville, a free site. Adding him to Dudley is a plus but either one by themselves does a very good job covering recruiting. Combined may be a little better but how much better does it need to be.
3. Getting more coverage of gymnastics, golf, women’s basketball, etc. is OK I guess but no one pays to get that stuff.
4. The bottom line is you can’t double the cost without a huge amount of never before and greatly desired value being added. There is nothing, so far, that would justify a 10% increase, much less the nearly 100% that is the only number on the table.
5. I subscribe to the ADG (my wife wants the coupons in Little Rock) so I have no dog in this hunt until it coming to me free with my paper subscription goes away. I am just worried that you are going to lose the majority of your subscribers and the Hawgs Illustrated part of this package will go away.

[thehogfather]

Thanks for the update Clay. Glad you agree with many fans’ feelings towards the price increase. Hopefully a compromise can be had here as I would really love to continue to be a part of this community.

[jimbeau77]

Thanks Clay for the explanation and why we disassociated from Scout was dead on. Scout has never cared for AR Sports and coverage of our state’s sports and kids by them was seriously lacking.
I’m sure we will all adapt and the minor issues get worked out in time. Let’s hope a fair and adequate annual fee can be reached to accommodate both the staff and us fans/board members so we can keep this great collusion of all involved here.

We know You, Dudley, Matt and the rest are pouring your hearts and souls into this and strive for the best in AR Sports coverage, and it is greatly appreciated.

[hog584]

Clay,
Don’t want to add to your anxieties at this point but is there a way to email you directly outside of posting?

Note, cancelled my subscription without problem (assuming get my promised confirmation); informed there would be no refund of existing subscription. That seems to differ from your original email from yesterday. Am I missing something?

[MattJones]

Clay,
Don’t want to add to your anxieties at this point but is there a way to email you directly outside of posting?

Note, cancelled my subscription without problem (assuming get my promised confirmation); informed there would be no refund of existing subscription. That seems to differ from your original email from yesterday. Am I missing something?

Email me at mojones@nwadg.com and I can help you.

[montybrewster]

Clay,
Don’t want to add to your anxieties at this point but is there a way to email you directly outside of posting?

Note, cancelled my subscription without problem (assuming get my promised confirmation); informed there would be no refund of existing subscription. That seems to differ from your original email from yesterday. Am I missing something?

They won’t refund remaining portion because they don’t cut off access until your subscription runs out. Your cancellation is actually only stopping the auto renewal.

[scotthog]

Thanks for the explanation, I though it was a little odd to come on the site and everything just changed without an announcement ahead of time but I may have missed it. I appreciate that the price has been $100/yr since I joined a long time ago so I could certainly understand an increase. Like others I would like to see a Modest increase maybe $129/yr and dump the print magazine as an option. Thanks for listening, I do enjoy what you guys do and I like the add of Richard.

[hogdynasty]

Clay,

After reading your explanation I feel a whole lot better. I will try to scrape up the pennies to keep a subscription. I love this extended family and our Razorbacks.

WPS!

[larryamahog]

I loved classic view because I could see who was posting in a thread before I opened to read.

[hawgystyle]

thank you clay for the explanation. it makes sense to move away from scout given the reasons you listed. my biggest frustration is the manner in which the move took place. I felt the old site and posters were completely abandoned and blindsided with not even a pinned thread directing what was happening.

I’m not sure I will stay but I’m willing to give the site a try. as I’ve said in another post, there is no real benefit for the former HI board members from this move.

[hollywoodbeachhog]

Thanks to those who have found us. I first want to say I appreciate everyone working to make the transition, just in logging in. It required work on your part and I thank you.

I want to explain a little about the thought process behind leaving Scout. Number one, I didn’t like the direction of the network. What we got from the network had gotten less and less. The money that has been paid by subscribers and was stripped off the top (just over half) was supposed to go for technical support and recruiting coverage. As it turned out, our staff at Hawgs Illustratged (me and Dudley) had to do all of that. The network threw it all back on us.

Recruiting coverage had been stripped away in man power by about 80 percent. In other words, 80 percent of the recruiting staff for Scout had been let go. It affected what we got from the network side on recruiting and evaluation especially hard in Arkansas. Scout was not evaluating Arkansas players. Montaric Brown from Ashdown did not get evaluated for months after the other services. We had him in the Hawgs Illustrated rankings as the number one player in the state three months back. Scout ranked him two weeks ago – after I pleaded with them.

Scout told me last summer that they didn’t care if I wrote any stories. They wanted only videos that were 30 seconds long. I did a few and they put footage of other schools from practice. The first one had Ohio State practice footage. Dudley prepared several and they disappeared never to appear on our site. We could not rely on them to get us what we needed from an Arkansas perspective.

It made much more sense to put our stuff at Whole Hog Sports, a website already run by our company (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) and to combine recruiting coverage with Richard Davenport and Dudley. They are the two best recruiting writers in our state and over the past few years have been writing the same stories. They often interviewed athletes at camps at the very same time and the content was similar. Now they can branch away and do different stories and double our recruiting content and look for more angles. Dudley will also get into other areas of recruiting that have been untapped because there is a lack of time.

We also wanted to add coverage of the women’s basketball team and other UA sports like gymnastics, golf, volleyball, etc. We have added a very talented feature writer in Jimmy Carter. That frees me up to write columns on different sports and also see events (like gymnastics) that I’ve never had the time to cover. It’s going to let us be Whole Hog Sports, everything Razorback that you could ever dream about.

In short, these things could have never happened with the resources we had at Hawgs Illustrated as long as we were tied to Scout. Now the monies that were being stripped away by Scout for (expenses for recruiting, that were used to cover recruits that were not on the Arkansas radar) can be used for our site, both for manpower, travel and coverage. It’s a great thing to be free of that burden.

Again, this was my idea because of what I perceived as a bad network. I saw the look of the Whole Hog website and wanted that, not Scout.

Scout was in the process of raising prices. They had actually tried to raise the price of Hawgs Illustrated twice and I refused. I didn’t think a website that was nonfunctional (Scout) as far as the message boards and front page could raise prices.

We are in the process of changing the initial price structure for the new website at Whole Hog Sports. I hope to offer an annual fee that most will think is appropriate that gets you Whole Hog Sports, Powered by Hawgs Illustrated as well as the Hawgs Illustrated magazine. I’ve been told this morning that will happen.

It’s an exciting time. Change is tough. But again, I want to thank everyone for working to find us at our new spot.

We are working hard to work through the issues that may have been created with individual accounts. If you are having technical issues, please email Matt Jones at mojones@nwadg.com. He is personally calling subscribers to resolve their problems.

Clay Henry, Publisher
Hawgs Illustrated

 Thank you for the informative post.  It would have been nice to get such a post on the front end, but I guess better late than never.  At this point, the board functions worse than the old one for a higher price.  I know you are looking at the pricing and that is great, but could you also look into providing the same level of features as the old board, specifically listing the posts below each thread and the preview/hover function that allowed a look at a post before actually opening it?
 If there is going to be a price increase, which I understand happens sometimes, it would be nice if we at least got the same level of performance out of the new board for the increased price.

[montybrewster]

 Thank you for the informative post.  It would have been nice to get such a post on the front end, but I guess better late than never.  At this point, the board functions worse than the old one for a higher price.  I know you are looking at the pricing and that is great, but could you also look into providing the same level of features as the old board, specifically listing the posts below each thread and the preview/hover function that allowed a look at a post before actually opening it?
 If there is going to be a price increase, which I understand happens sometimes, it would be nice if we at least got the same level of performance out of the new board for the increased price.

Judging by the reaction that scout has had to the move so far (deleting pinned posts with explanations/directions, banning moderators, etc) I doubt that they would have allowed their site to be used in such a manner. I would be shocked if they would have allowed Clay to start arranging a move with subscribers while still using scout resources to do so. Probably no real way for anyone to give this explanation on the front end is my guess.

[greghog]

thank you clay for the explanation. it makes sense to move away from scout given the reasons you listed. my biggest frustration is the manner in which the move took place. I felt the old site and posters were completely abandoned and blindsided with not even a pinned thread directing what was happening.

I’m not sure I will stay but I’m willing to give the site a try. as I’ve said in another post, there is no real benefit for the former HI board members from this move.

This has probably already been posted (I haven’t finished reading the thread yet) but there was a “pinned” thread up on the old site about the change. Scout just took it down.

[neastarkie]

I’m a monthly subscriber to the ADG. Does that subscription include access to this site? As for Scout, I paid for a year’s subscription sometime in January I think. Should we cancel? If so, do we get a refund for the unused portion?

[montybrewster]

I’m a monthly subscriber to the ADG. Does that subscription include access to this site? As for Scout, I paid for a year’s subscription sometime in January I think. Should we cancel? If so, do we get a refund for the unused portion?

From my understanding, your ADG subscription gets you access to the board as well. As for your scout subscription, you will need to cancel to avoid the auto renewal in January. You won’t get a refund, but you will keep premium access on scout until the subscription runs out.

[bluegrassrazorback]

Thanks for the info Clay

It’s good to be here with everyone