Ivan Maisel: New job is to make On3.com the college sports destination site

One of the gods in my business, a sports editor named Stanley Woodward, got fired by the New York Herald-Tribune in 1948 and rehired in 1959. In his first column back, Woodward began, “As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted 11 years ago …”

I haven’t had it so bad – it’s been only four months since I was so rudely interrupted. I found some stories to keep me busy. I wrote a piece on why Alabama coach Nick Saban has stayed on top of college football at an age when most coaches are out of the game (thanks, The Ringer).

With a talented young journalist named Joe Levin, I co-wrote a study of how the 2020 Texas Longhorns football team weathered the controversy over the school alma mater (thanks, Texas Monthly).

I got vaccinated twice (thanks, Pfizer).

Over the past four months, I gave my journalism career a lot of thought. Like, did I still want one? I could write books, freelance, travel, play golf. Or I could watch games without having to discern how they fit, each game a jagged piece of a 14-week jigsaw puzzle. I could underline the free in free agency.

In short, I could do what I want.

So that’s what I decided – to do what I want. The thing is, I figured out that what I want to do is to keep covering college football nationally, just as I have done since 1987. I will be doing so via a new platform. Today is my first day at On3.com, the name derived from what players say to time how they break their huddle.

Our goal at On3 is to be the college sports destination for the fans who love not just the games but the spectacle. That may be redundant, now that I think about it, but we intend to cover college sports from the end of the eighth grade to the minute that Roger Goodell (or Adam Silver) walks to the lectern to begin the draft. We will try to capture the wonder of college sports, both the wonderment (How did that player do that?) and the wonder aloud (Why did that coach do that?).

On3 is new, but the people behind it are not. CEO Shannon Terry and his team created Rivals.com. They created 247sports.com. Like those sites, On3 will focus on recruiting. We intend to mine data to bring insight to recruiting, to define and explain the creation of student-athlete name, image and likeness rights, and, of course, to better explain the play on the field, too.

There will be a difference in On3 from those sites – a greater focus on writing. We want On3 to be the voice trusted by fans from College Park to College Station, from Boulder to Rocky Top. The staff we are assembling will bring a considerable amount of talent and experience to our readers, all with the mission to become synonymous with national college sports.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been the first writer on a staff; in 2002, ESPN hired me as the first writer to cover college football for its website. I went to ESPN because of its two-decade track record. I feel the same way about the team behind On3.

And, as was the case at ESPN, I won’t be by myself for long. Over the coming months, we will rev up our coverage, begin podcasts, add video, all to bring you the best perspectives available at this moment, when college sports stand on the precipice of the greatest change in the 152-year history of the sport.

From NIL to the transfer portal, from the U.S. Senate to the U.S. Supreme Court, from the fate of the College Football Playoff to the fate of the Pac-12 (which put the “league” in “beleaguered”), my favorite sport is about to transform into something unrecognizable to the Woodward generation. He is, by the way, the only writer I know of to name a conference. A New England native who as a child attended the first game played at Harvard Stadium – 1903, if you’re scoring at home – Woodward came up with “Ivy League,” a touch of whimsy for a group of schools that take themselves so seriously.

To be honest, college football may become unrecognizable to anyone who worked in a press box when my career began. The coming transformation is why I decided to continue working. The word I keep returning to is “relevant.” I want my work to remain relevant. I am not ready to have my career relegated to the past 34 seasons, especially now that college sports are leaving them behind. The next few years will be a wild ride, and through On3 we will view this metamorphosis together.

On3 will launch August 15. My belief in the concept of On3 is strong enough that I invested in the company. I bet on them just as they bet on me. My official duties are Vice President of Editorial and Senior Writer. My real duties are to do what I have done since the 1980s – bring you stories about the game, the games, the players, the coaches, and the history.

I’ll spend the next two months reporting and writing to have something for you when we launch. Let’s meet again in August.