Sports Illustrated, Scout Media Partner on Video For College Football Recruiting, National Signing Day

Time Inc.’s Sports Illustrated Group and Scout Media, Inc. are teaming up to produce “The Race to National Signing Day” — a content collaboration that includes live and on-demand video programming and digital reports devoted to college football recruiting news, breaking commitments, in-depth features and expert analysis surrounding National Signing Day.

The two brands will combine for hours of live and on-demand coverage throughout the month of January, culminating with a live preview show on Feb. 2 and then more than 10 hours of live programming on Feb. 3 – National Signing Day. The show will feature experts from both Scout and SI and will include analysis of conferences, teams and players across the country. All jointly created content will be streamed and distributed across both partners’ sites and extensions, including SI.com, Scout.com and SI’s new college football site, CampusRush.com.

“Building on the momentum of the recent launch of Campus Rush, SI is doubling down on all things college football,” said SI Digital GM Patty Hirsch. “We are excited about this new collaboration with Scout as it represents the perfect opportunity to dive even deeper into the recruitment process and to deliver hours of high-quality digital content to both of our diverse audiences in a fresh way.”

“Scout’s commitment to high quality video production combined with decades of experience covering, rating and ranking elite football players is a perfect compliment to SI’s legendary college football coverage and their in-depth reporting,” said Scout CEO and Founder James Heckman.

This new partnership will leverage the complementary strengths of SI’s team of award winning and highly plugged in college football journalists – including Pete Thamel, Andy Staples and Chris Johnson – with Scout’s extensive team of experienced on-the-ground recruiting experts including Brandon Huffman (National), Chad Simmons (Southeast), Greg Biggins (West Coast), Greg Powers (Midlands), Allen Trieu (Midwest), Brian Dohn (Northeast), Scott Kennedy (National) and Amy Campbell (National). In addition to the live shows around Signing Day, other coverage includes up-to-the-minute player rankings, team rankings, conference rankings, exclusive interviews with top recruits and on-demand video dispatches. The collaboration will provide the deepest, most authentic coverage of the nation’s top high school football stars as they take the next step in their lives.

The announcement comes after a sweeping series of recent initiatives from the SI Group, including the acquisition of the FanSided Network of 300+ sites, a content and distribution deal with the mobile-first sports media brand Chat Sports, the launch of the college football-focused Campus Rush digital vertical and Time Inc.’s acquisitions of three companies that form the nucleus of Sports Illustrated Play – a new business devoted to youth sports. It also follows the announcement of a major collaboration between SI and Conde Nast’s WIRED that explores football through the lens of innovation in a multi-part, multi-platform series looking ahead to Super Bowl 100.