For many of the years of its existence dating back to 1998, the founder of the venerable track and field and cross country site www.dyestat.com would use the summer months to compile award lists and handle other tasks.

This summer is much different as John Dye is in the midst of a quest to keep the widely popular website alive thanks to a decision by online and TV sports giant ESPN to shutter its high school web offerings, of which DyeStat is an integral part, this coming September.

DyeStat was founded in 1998 as a vehicle for Dye, now 76 and living in Henderson, Nev. with wife Donna, to follow the competition for his children Derek and Natalie who became active - and quite good - in track and field while in high school in western Maryland.

From its humble and low key beginnings Dye built the site into a destination for high school track and field and cross country aficionados who were starved for coverage from the mainstream media. The site was accessed, recognized and revered nationwide.

In its earlier years Dye was able to elicit support from Nike and others. He then joined the Rivals Group of sites for added relevance and scope. He later sold the site to Student Sports which then was purchased by ESPN.

Now it stands on the precipice of extinction but Dye, a former newspaperman and federal government auditor, describes his frame of mind as optimistic when it comes to its survival.

“It's totally up in the air at this point,” Dye said. “I'm talking to a number of people for possible funding or financing and continuation of the site and I hope that something does come through."

“I'm fairly optimistic. There's nothing I can brag about at this point. We'd really like to have something settled by August, at least by the end of August when cross country season starts.”

That being said, receiving the word from ESPN that is was ending its high school presence online was a heavy blow for Dye.

“Well it was a punch in the stomach, that's for sure,” Dye said. “It's been such a personal effort and a family effort. It made me feel really personally bad, not so much for my own livelihood because I'm retired from the federal government."

“I hate to see DyeStat end this way. We are going to try our best to make sure it keeps going.”

Coincidentally the news of the pending closure broke as Dye was at New Balance Nationals in Greensboro, NC., and it did not go over well.

"I was just at the Olympic Trials and I don't know how many people came up to commiserate or just hoping we'd keep it going,” Dye said. “Some people came up to say ‘is it really true?’”

Keeping the site alive could be a much taller order than what Dye faced when launching DyeStat.

“The conditions are vastly different than when I started both in terms of the market for track and field news and the economics of website management,” Dye said.

“At that time you could buy a domain name for $20-$30 and you could start a website on a shared service for $20 a month. The barriers to entry were not there. As we grew the costs started mounting.”

The site became so popular by years six and seven it was recording six-to-eight million page views a month.

DyeStat traffic declined after the move to ESPN, especially after closing of its very popular message board, TrackTalk. Dye would not comment on the reasons for the decline or the specific numbers. 

Regardless, numbers like the ones DyesStat drew in its heyday make producing a website an expensive proposition. 

“When I started coaching 13 years ago, I knew I wanted to do everything to the best of my ability and make my kids the best they could be,” Doug Butler, multiple-time state championship-winning cross country and track and field coach at Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy in Melbourne, FL., wrote in an email. 

“I went to the state coaches clinic that first year . . . and was told about dyestat.com and plugged right into it. Within a few years our team was on DyesStat and we knew we had made it. Our kids work really hard and to be ranked on DyeStat or to make it on the cover was the greatest thrill in the world for them. It is beyond belief that such a huge part of our sport can go away.”
 
If Dye is successful in saving DyesStat he acknowledges he must adapt to the changing times to remain relevant with his core audience of high school athletes.

“I think social media is something we would have to address more than we have done in the past,” he said. “We’d need to get into Facebook. We’d need to get into more interactive stuff so the kids could have a customized experience based on their interests.

“Our message boards were a phenomenon as a community builder in early days of the Internet. The situation now is different with so many alternatives for customizing your own community.”

And as for the lessons he has learned in the past - which could very well determine his future - he still wonders about the return on investment in covering high school athletics.

“I think there still is a question whether or not high school track and field can support intensive coverage,” he said. “I don't think we’ve ever covered our expenses even though we were one of the more successful high school digital sites in the ESPN HS experience.

“They weren't making money off of it. I think there's a real question as to how much advertising interest there is.”

Only time will tell.

By Mark DeCotis
For DistancePreps.com

DeCotis can be reached at [email protected]

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