Seventeen-year-old Alex Kline is the "impresario behind TheRecruitScoop.com, which in three years of existence has established itself as a highly authoritative observer of the college basketball recruiting scene,” according to Zach Berman of the N.Y. TIMES. Kline today “will officially become a partner with Rivals.com and Yahoo Sports and take himself and his site to a new level of exposure.” Kline operates in “an ambiguous middle ground of basketball recruiting -- part friend, part reporter, part evaluator.” By his own admission, “he is not a journalist” nor he does have “aspirations to be a coach, and is not professionally trained as an evaluator.” Kline is “simply someone who develops relationships and accumulates information, then dispenses the information to three parties: college coaches, high school players and the general public.” Kline said, “There’s no official way of describing it. There’s the promoter side of me, there’s the marketing side of me, the journalism side, the professional business side. There’s no real word in the dictionary.” Rider Univ. men's basketball coach Tommy Dempsey said of Kline, “He has access to information that we’re looking for, I’d be shocked if most coaches are not following him on Twitter. And if they’re not, they should be.” Berman noted Rivals representatives “contacted Kline in October about a partnership” and by late December, “they reached an agreement.” Kline will “host question-and-answer sessions with readers, live chats and provide daily updates.” Around 70% of his content “would be behind a paywall, and Kline would receive a part of the revenue it generated.” Kline will “still operate and own the site, but it will be redesigned so that it resembles the Rivals template” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/6).
