The DII Report: Going further
Here's what you need to know about the future of the DII Report.
Welcome back, DII sports fans. If you read last week’s newsletter, you know that there is some change on the horizon. It is the dawn of a new day as the DII Report is becoming a subscription-based newsletter.
This decision prompted a few questions via email from the DII Report’s loyal readership, so I thought I would take this newsletter to answer a few questions on why the need for change — a DII Report AMA, if you would.
Most importantly, you should understand what you are getting right up front with your monthly subscription: a more authentic me.
What do I mean by that? I am entering my 10th season at Turner/TNT Sports as the DII beat reporter. As with any journalist, I have assignments. Sure, much of what you read on NCAA.com is, in fact, my creation — the Power 10s, for example — but I still must meet my assignment deadlines. I may still be the only person that covers all DII sports, all the time. For every one of my DII baseball articles you have come to love, I need to write an article on DII field hockey. That works for the ultimate goals at TNT Sports and for the NCAA but may not necessarily be what lights my inner creative fire. At the DII Report you get what I want to write, when I want to write it. And since I have my finger on the pulse of DII, I think I can gauge pretty darn well what it is you want to see.
For years, fans and coaches have told me I should be an advocate for the end of regionalization. More recently, people have been curious about my thoughts on the transfer portal and DII sports. Those, of course, have never been my assignments, nor are they something that I would share on a public site. Behind a paywall, though? I have the freedom to be critical or hand out high praise (see, you still don’t know what I think about regionalization!), basically, the freedom to share myself. That is liberating for you, dear readers, and me.
In essence, a subscription-based model gets you inside my brain, for better or worse.
Of course, there is a financial aspect as well. If you’ve subscribed to this newsletter, there is a solid chance that you have also read my DII articles on NCAA.com regularly. And yes, I do get paid to write those. That’s why those will remain FREE. You may also be surprised to find out that all those DII articles you see on NCAA.com are my side job. I left Turner full-time in 2020 and, as I jokingly call it with coaches and SIDs, my “real job” is as the managing editor of a technology magazine. You still get three FREE articles a week from me for 10 months out of the year at NCAA.com, and I truly love bringing them to you. I tell you this so you understand that the DII Report isn’t my side hustle — it’s my side hustle’s side hustle.
I started the DII Report on my own three years ago. Why? Because at Turner/TNT Sports, we cover the now. So, during football season, you’ll see football articles, during basketball season, you see basketball articles, during baseball sea — you get it. But that’s not how college sports work. There are always sports happening.
The DII Report started in 2021 with DII baseball fall reports, an article concept inspired by our friends at D1Baseball, but had never been on the internet for DII, and to this day, still hasn’t. I’ll share with you that even in the early stages of those newsletters — when people didn’t even know what to expect — I had a 70% or higher open rate (and still do). The industry standard for a “good” newsletter open rate is 17-28%… so, I know you all like what you are getting. I vowed if it ever fell below 50%, I’d stop the newsletter, and four years later… here we are, not only still going, but taking it to a new level. And that’s precisely why it should be only the best.
It takes me hours to talk and email with coaches and put those together — I’m not just looking at rosters and throwing darts, I’m finding out hit tools, velocity, pitching arsenals and potential MLB prospects you should be watching. As we got into the spring, I was bringing you field-side coverage — in video, interview, and my scouting profile form — from the schools closest to me.
All those expenses were accrued by me. The gas, the mileage, the food (you gotta eat!), the hours spent driving, writing and editing — all of it was piling up. So outside of the creative freedom this venture will give me, a subscription will help further bring you the coverage you deserve.
This was a creative decision by me to have the platform to bring you information you truly won’t find anywhere else. Some of it will be in the form of the DII fall reports for baseball. Some will come in my “field of 28” or “field of 56” projections for DII football and baseball, respectively. I’m going to remain baseball-heavy, but add in some football and basketball articles. And yes, some will be opinionated articles, finally diving into the world of regionalization, the transfer portal, and maybe even NIL and the effects we’ve seen on the division.
How much will it cost? I put the power in your hands — another one of my goals: to create a close-knit DII sports family where you too have a voice — and the voting was overwhelmingly in favor of the $5.99 base. That is the direction I think we are headed, and it will begin the first week of the DII season which is Aug. 26. There are still some details I am working out as to what day I will send out the newsletter, and whether or not there will be tiers, but I can guarantee an average of one newsletter a week, and I’d like to have a couple. Some content will still remain free for all, but the juicy ones, whether it be my opinion or insider info, that will be for my loyal subscribers.
So, stay tuned DII sports fans. Over the coming weeks, I’ll have more for you on structure and tiers and what you need to know before agreeing to pay. But get excited — the DII Report is going to a whole new level, and you are the first to be invited along on the ride.
Oh… of course, you don’t just get a sales pitch. Be sure to check out my most recent appearance on D1Rejects where I talked about my Lindy’s preseason rankings with Kobe.