Editor’s note: This story contains bonus video material featured in our free SmartEdition available at http://newsandtech.newspaperdirect.com
 

Football is serious business in the Lone Star State and that can be seen by how the Amarillo (Texas) Globe-News’ Pigskinreview.com covers the local high school teams.

“We wanted this to be a one-stop-shop for high school football in our area,” said Darci Heiskell, online editor of content for the Globe-News. “Providing quarter-by-quarter scores on Friday nights is a number-one goal as no one else in our region provides the scores from all the area games as they happen.”

The Amarillo Globe-News Web staff, left to right: Front row, Miles Anderson, sports writer; Darci Heiskell, online editor; Lance Lahnert, sports editor; Tosh Lyons, programmer; Duong Tran, content developer (on desk). Back row, Wrustler Little, photographer/videographer; Danh Hoang, Web designer; Jessica Burton, content developer; Adam Gollihugh, online coordinator; Leslie Massey, sales manager; Kendra Barrett, sales representative.
 

The site just wrapped up its second football season, offering readers a rich menu of stats, interviews and video features.

The Globe-News provides coverage of 72 regional high school teams, using home-grown software built to reflect the needs of the market.

Heiskell said that the response to Pigskinreview.com has been overwhelming.

“The coaches and teams love the Web site and armchair quarterbacks are checking out the v-cast religiously each week to see how they match up against our sports writers on picks,” said Heiskell. “When we’re at games on weekends taking photos or video, we get comments from students and parents as we walk through the stands.”

Photos: Amarillo Globe-News
Right: Jonathan ‘Hollywood” Lockett and
Miles Blankenship discuss the lineup before a
taping of Pigskin Review.
 

The site offers a home page for each of the region’s high school football teams. Each is a sports junkie’s dream with rosters, photos, coach interviews, schedules, stats, scores, recaps, standings and player profiles.

 

Other features include a game of the week highlight, Friday night scoreboard, a compiled fantasy team, an MVP player of the week, photo galleries and other news.

Video package

Videos include a Pigskin v-cast that features a recap of the previous week’s games and predictions of upcoming weekend matchups.

The v-casts last about 10 minutes, along with a 15-second commercial, Heiskell said. Game-of-the-week videos are between two minutes and three minutes. “It takes an entire day to produce our three weekly videos,” Heiskell said. “This takes a while because we add photos, background graphics and other media to the final product.”

The site requires the work of at least three people, with more during certain days of the week.

 “On Tuesdays we film the Pigskin v-cast, which involved two sports writers, plus a field reporter and two production people,” she said. “On Fridays, our content people are busy with updating quarterly scores on our Friday Night Live scoreboard.”

These staffers also update the stats, scores, recaps and standings every weekend.

Pigskinreview offers three levels of sponsorships, one gold and two silver. McDonald’s, which purchased the gold sponsorship, receives premier placement on the site, each school’s homepage and in print ads.

McDonald’s also gets recognition through the MVP selection, in which a top football player is identified each week.

The Globe-News promotes the site at McDonald’s with wall posters that feature individual teams and players.

“This was very popular and we received very positive feedback from this in-store promotion from McDonald’s as well as the students, parents, coaches and teams in our coverage area,” Heiskell said.

Heiskell said Pigskinreview  continues to evolve.

“The scoreboard works great on Friday nights, thanks to our ‘superfans’ from all over the region that call in scores,” she said. ”The participation from the coaches and staff has been outstanding and our advertisers have really enjoyed supporting this program; it’s truly been a community effort.”

Heiskell said Pigskinreview wants to provide even more detailed high school football information to readers in the coming seasons.

“With current staffing this becomes a fairly daunting task,” she said. “We may look to the coaches and players to help input some of this data for us in the future.”