Why Are Users Drawn to Rivals.com? A Uses and Gratifications Approach to Who Follows College Sports Recruiting Websites and Their Perceptions of Credibility

As the sports media landscape continues to shift, one of the most constant players has been Rivals.com, one of the more influential media organizations covering college athletics. Using the uses and gratifications approach as a guide, this study explores how users engage with Rivals.com content, how they perceive the network and its reporters in terms of credibility, and how that determines their willingness to subscribe. The purpose of this research is to better understand how and why fans interact within Rivals.com’s network of websites in order to discern their motivations for engaging with the site and the gratifications obtained through that engagement. Findings also instruct journalists and the media organizations that employ them to improve practice and delivery of content through proper engagement with audiences, cultivating relationships between users and the site, and being cognizant of changing perceptions of journalistic standards, such as bias, to remain credible and financially viable. Further practical and theoretical implications are also explored.