The End of the Road

After 30 years in journalism, and 10 years of writing the Bilo College Football Report, the inevitable end of the line has come. As of today, I am ending the Bilo College Football Report and the Bilo Sports Report, effective immediately.

It's been an interesting ride, but the writing has been on the wall regarding this decision for some time, and several factors have gone into this hard thought out decision. The facts are as they are, as stagnating readership, a stagnating subscription rate, and a glut of other information available to readers has caused me to simply come to this understanding that with so many other venues available, I am working in a much too crowded field, and for a writer such as me, with virtually no larger platform support, I no longer have the energy, resources, or desire to compete for the public attention.

For those that are subscribers to the PRS Premium content, I will continue to honor that subscription by releasing the newsletter on a weekly basis during the football season, through the Super Bowl of 2020. Once the Super Bowl concludes, the PRS Premium newsletter will be shutting down as well. I will also still be on twitter, @BiloRatedSports, for an undetermined period of time, but quite frankly, I am not sure how much longer I can stand it.

I would like to thank those that have supported me through this venture, with none being more important than my Wife, Dina, who has always encouraged me to follow this path, always. Her unending support, work, and love has carried this project much longer than it probably ever would have gone in any other setting. She is the brightest star in this universe, and I could not have done the work I have done without her.

I'd like to thank Clay Baker and Ed Graney at ESPN radio in Las Vegas for their support and for enduring my blunt, no nonsense nature towards sports on their show weekly, and would also like to thank Mitch Moss of VSIN and Mike Pritchard for bringing me to the airwaves at ESPN radio several years ago. Thanks also to Jake Wimberly of ESPN radio in Jackson, Mississippi, for reaching out to me out of the thin air to bring me to his audience as well.

Thanks also to my friend of more than 35 years, Keith Harding, for the work and ideas that he has contributed to this project over the last decade. While the project ends, our friendship will continue for many years to come.

The landscape in sports journalism is changing rapidly, and largely not in a good way. The narcissism that has been unleashed into this work by younger generations of writers has been a sign to me that the business has changed in distasteful ways. No longer are we reporting on what is real, we are largely reporting on opinion, and an ever increasing sense of "I'm right and your wrong", and "Nothing that has ever happened before matters". I would advise writers that this is the wrong path. You are not the story. The events and the people that we write about are. Once you have forgotten that simple fact, you have ruined the story. Also, don't worry about social media. Much of it is garbage. If you write for what the social media mobs want, you have also already lost your path, and your decency.

I have always believed in what I have done with this project. It was a great time. I have always reported the truth, and the facts as I have had them. I have broken many large stories, and I have always given you the facts of those stories, not made up fantasy works, like many others tend to do. I have been supported, but have often been bashed for simply trying to do what I love to do in the best way I knew how. I have been accused of being some hack writing in my mom's basement (joke's on you, assholes, I am not a kid, and my parents never had a basement), and I have been invited onto radio shows to entrap me by people who simply did not like what I had to say (I reversed the trap on ESPN Radio in Omaha, and railroaded them into walking into their own trap).

One thing remains constant in this project, and that is that, despite selling some subscriptions for the premium content over the last 2 years, I have never profited by one penny in this endeavor. Any money earned, and let me tell you that it was not much in any regard, covered some costs, but over ten years, I largely operated in the red. I still managed to pump out over 2000 total articles, all while having a full time day job that is not related to journalism in any conceivable way, with a Wife and a family as well. I have given you, the reader, all that I have to give on this project, and I have run out of steam.

In the last few months, I have been approached by a few different entities about joining their "projects". Of course, none of those projects "panned out" as were discussed. As my dear departed Father-In-Law Jack used to say, "there are liars and there are buyers" and boy have I met with some liars. To those people, I say this...do what I am doing, and stick to your day jobs. I am not leaving this endeavor for another sports related project. Just so we are clear.

So, in the end, this is it. I am signing off for the final time. Short of a miracle of some sort, this is the last post I will be making. A decade is long enough, and the time has come to get the hell out of here. I do wish the ending were different, but I can look in the mirror and know I gave it all I could and then some, and that, as they say, has to be enough.

Peace out,
Scott Bilo