NCAA reins in hefty college media guides

Previously, a college football media guide could be as long as the imagination of a sports information director or as fat as the school's budget. - College Football -
But the NCAA figured the ever-expanding books were becoming an out-of-control recruiting tool. So as a cost-cutting measure this year it limited the pages to 208.
For SIDs, the question is no longer what to put in but what to keep out.
Last year's Missouri football guide was 614 pages and weighed 2.2 pounds, numbers in publishing now reserved only for
J.K. Rowling. As a benchmark, the NCAA Division I Manual, the rules book and constitution for major college athletics that had been criticized for its own swelling, is 482 pages.
Missouri cut pages with two essentials - opponents and history - as well as some records and biographies. - College Football -
"I understand why people look at our book and think, 'Come on. That's out of hand,' " says Chad Moller, Missouri's director of media relations, noting the cost-cutting measure will save $20,000 in a $40 million athletics budget. "But it doesn't impact anyone's budget but ours."
Sports information directors are wrestling with the challenges and expressing displeasure.
"I found it very comical when a spokesperson for the NCAA said, 'It's all about leveling the playing field for recruiting,' " says John Lewandowski, assistant athletics director at Michigan State. "You want to level the playing field, limit stadium capacity to 50,000. You can't do that, just like you can't legislate tradition." - College Football -
Books now are being released to the media and sold to fans in anticipation of the Sept. 1 opening of I-A football.
"I do think that overall, schools will still look for ways to make their guides stand out and/or present information in other unique ways," Georgia associate athletics director Claude Felton says. "So because of that I'm still not convinced there will be true cost savings in the long run."
Missouri still will send guides to recruits and sell leftovers to fans. "I'm sure some fans will be, well, not offended," Moller says, "but disappointed." - College Football -
USA TODAY's Reid Cherner, Jennifer Kushlis, Allison Rupp, Thomas O'Toole and Craig Bennett take a look at the ins and outs of media guides: Guides are do-it-all promotional, recruiting tools
What exactly is a media guide?
In its truest form, the media guide is a booklet containing statistical and biographical information for a specific college's sports team. It's a tool used by print and electronic reporters to prepare stories. - College Football -
It's not a new phenomenon. The Rev. Edmund P. Joyce Sports Research Collection at the University Libraries of Notre Dame has college football media guides dating to 1933.
But over the last 10 or 15 years, the guides have been changing. According to Charles Bloom, associate commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, "It has grown to the point where it's not just a media guide. It's used to promote to (a school's) various publics, whether they be donors, prospective donors, corporations or community leaders. It's used for PR and recruiting."
Features generally include maps and information about the town in which a school is located.
The book can also be a moneymaker. The SEC even sells its separate conference guide for $15. They'll sell around 500 or so of those, Bloom says.
Regardless of its intentions, "A great book," Bloom says, "is a book that has all the pertinent information, and it should be easy to find." - College Football -

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