HBCU Sports has been among the leaders in providing information and online content about black college athletics for nearly two decades.
Buzz: You created HBCU Sports in 1997 because you seen little to no coverage on HBCU sports. Talk about this and talk about the media landscape today as it relates to coverage on HBCU sports. Why do you believe this is the case?
Kenn: HBCU Sports, which was initially created as The SWAC Page, was established at a time when the Internet was still in its infancy in 1997. At the time, I had to rely on getting Saturday’s HBCU football scores in the Sunday morning Dallas Morning News newspaper. The information published in the newspaper was simply a line score, or maybe a box score, but without any other supporting information. For me it wasn’t enough, and it was my guess that others followers of HBCU football felt the same way. At that point, with no previous experience, I went to a local CompUSA store and purchased a book on building websites. The rest is history.
Overall media coverage of HBCU sports, thanks to the Internet, has improved a great deal, but still pales in comparison to the larger collegiate landscape. I believe the demand is there, but the deficit stems from limited resources within our HBCU athletic and media relations department in the decimation of information, combined with the limited resources that a number of HBCU media outlets are faced with to provide accurate and consistent coverage.
Read more of Rashad’s interview with HBCU Buzz here.
