Recruiting Trap - Notification Addiction
Updated: Nov 26, 2022
Okay, so maybe "addiction" is a little bit much, but hopefully you'll get my point as we get going here.
One of the biggest hooks (it seems) with online recruiting services like NCSA, SportsRecruits and even University Athlete is the ability for them to send you a notification EVERY TIME a school visits your athletes profile. This is great if you want to keep up with traffic and see almost all of the interactions on your athletes profile. Even UA has some stuff that is at least "interesting" as far as the information breakdown they give you.
NCSA starts selling you on their platform at a really young age. My guess is they feel like once they get you on their platform you won't want to leave. They get you hooked and then you're their's forever. I think this is at the root of this issue. You are so used to seeing the "traffic" that your athlete gets on the site that it puts you into a position to make you think that your athlete is getting recruited. It is great to be able to see that your emails are getting through to coaches and they are taking the time to click on the film. This part is certainly helpful. My question to families is always, "what did the coach do next? Did they send you an email?" It's what happens next that really matters in these situations. A coach could watch your film 50 times, but if they aren't reaching back out to the athlete, then it doesn't necessarily matter.
University Athlete is a little similar, but different. They give you the information on how many times schools visit your profile during a tournament and sort that information by conference. Now, this COULD be helpful information as far as where you might fit (see HERE and HERE) but you don't actually know the information that coaches are putting into your evaluation. It could be "hide forever" - yes that's a button - and that's why you're getting a notification or traffic from a school. Again, what happens next? Does a coach watch a whole match? Did they watch for 30 seconds? That matters. Coaches tend to spend more time around courts of the athletes that are highest on their lists.
Okay, so in general I think the notification and figuring out how much traffic your athlete is getting is great. I have plenty of ways that traffic on my website is tracked and it gives me plenty of insight. What you do with that information though is key. That's what these services miss on. Sure, you can follow up with a school after they watch your film and see what response you get. Remember though, if you're a junior or a senior and you reach out to a school after they watch your film and their response is generic, a questionnaire or camp invite...they probably aren't interested.
If it's "quiet" then go make some noise. If that doesn't work, then make sure you're plugged into the correct speakers.
