This thread has almost 1,000 comments now from hundreds of different posters.

99% of the comments and posters in the thread are not criticizing the pay side info. Not sure how this is triggering a threat to shut it down.

Ashley Hodge said:

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I try to live my life never taking offense. We read a lot of comments that trash the quality of info on the premium side and we've been discussing if it is worth keeping it going. It would be one thing if people complained about stuff outside of the one thing that actually allows us to have Craig, Paul, Smoaky, JJ Joe, Travis, Kendall, production guys, a studio, website that isn't bombarded with ads, etc….

Mitch's comments sparked a reaction. We are all for free speech but when premium subscriptions are the lifeblood of all that other stuff, it just doesn't make sense having posters working in opposition to the goals of the business.

Appreciate the feedback, we've been soliciting feedback on the premium side as well. We'll talk it over with Jason and go from there.

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Since my comment was apparently the tipping point for all of this, let me make my stance clear.

I have nothing against you, Jason, Brian, Colt, et. al. You're businesspeople, running a business, and you're going to do what you think is best for the business. I get it. If you decide that running a free (to the end consumer), ad-supported message board doesn't line up with the business you want, by all means, shut it down. Like bear2be2 said, people who want a free discussion forum will probably find one someplace else, and you won't have the headache of having to deal with the freeloaders (or the business pipeline that I'm sure exists from free to pay side).

I made the original comment because it had been posted in this thread the report at 11pm Central on Wednesday night that it looked like Drew was staying. My caution was, in effect, "I hope that is true, but given the messenger, I have my skepticism, so don't get your hopes up too high." I was dead wrong in expressing skepticism, and couldn't be more thrilled that I was. Kudos to you and the team for crushing this news.

The reason for my skepticism at the time was, I feel, based of several facts:

- the miss on the BearsTruth report that Art Briles was going to be given another chance in May 2016. It was posted under a thread titled "Grace" or "Forgiveness," if I recall correctly. And yes, I was a paying premium member of that site at that time.

- the report in late 2016 that Chad Morris was going to be the new coaching hire to replace Jim Grobe. Thank goodness this turned out to be incorrect.

- the report that stated that Austin Novosad was firm in his commitment to Baylor less than 48 hours from signing day, at which point he decommitted and signed with Oregon.

- the report that Dave Aranda would be returning in 2024. I mistook Brian's public remark that he was disappointed that Pete Thamel of ESPN.com was chosen to break the story instead of SicEm365 as evidence that this site has been scooped on that news. I was unaware that it was being reported on the Premium boards that the school was leaning towards bringing him back. I was wrong to include that as a data point. I apologized for that earlier in the thread, but I'll do it again here. I'm sorry for throwing you under the bus in that instance when it wasn't justified.

The other points, I'm confident I'm correct on. But I'm equally confident that you'll take the time to correct me if I'm wrong. I also understand that it's a tough gig. Trying to report a fluid situation accurately is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. Things change, **** happens. I don't envy your role.

What I don't understand is the sensitivity to people mentioning that this site's owners have been wrong before on major stories. Furthermore, I don't understand why you're so mystified that you get criticism at all. This site took a few things that were previously free to the end user (the free board from BaylorFans.com, and the team at 1660 ESPN Radio) and brought them in-house, trying to monetize them. There is always going to be a subset of people who don't like having to pay for something they previously did not have to pay for. Whether that's realistic or not is subjective, but there's going to be criticism for that, period. (I should also note that I don't know if Smoaky and crew didn't have their ESPN contacts renewed before or after they had already agreed to come onboard at SicEm365, as that wasn't made public.)

At no point have I insulted anyone, disparaged anyone's character, or told the people who think that their $13/month is well spent on a message board that they are wrong or unintelligent for doing so. I've seen far, far worse criticism and personal vitriol directed at mods of other fan boards than anything uttered on the fan boards here. At the end of the day, if this has been too much, feel free to ban me or shut down the free boards entirely. It's your business, and you are able to make whatever decisions you think best support that. This is a profit-maximizing business, whereas BaylorFans was more of a passion project. I'm a capitalist, so I know which one usually wins out in the end.

As to the idea that I'm "working in opposition to the goals" of the site, I don't get that. This isn't a situation like where SVT was trashing you guys on twitter, all while trying to launch a competing site. I have no ulterior motive. My only motivation is loving Baylor athletics and enjoying discussing them with other like-minded people. I also think that someone holding themselves out as an expert or insider should be subject to some accountability, similar to how a coach of a program should be held accountable when their team's performance falls short of expectations. I would think that would be perfectly in-line with what you're trying to accomplish.

Final point: I'm not sure why you're discussing shutting things down now, when the absolute abomination that is the R&P board has been allowed to run, unchecked, for almost a decade, but it is what it is. I will say, if some criticism is making you guys want to board things up behind a paywall entirely, maybe this isn't the best business for someone with that level of sensitivity to others' opinions to be in. You put yourself out there. If you're right, your business grows and you are successful. If you're wrong, people tend to keep receipts. That's the nature of the beast.

Mitch Henessey said:

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- the miss on the BearsTruth report that Art Briles was going to be given another chance in May 2016. It was posted under a thread titled "Grace" or "Forgiveness," if I recall correctly. And yes, I was a paying premium member of that site at that time.

- the report in late 2016 that Chad Morris was going to be the new coaching hire to replace Jim Grobe. Thank goodness this turned out to be incorrect.

- the report that stated that Austin Novosad was firm in his commitment to Baylor less than 48 hours from signing day, at which point he decommitted and signed with Oregon.

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This is just lazy. Of course sourced information will sometimes end up going the other way. Do you really expect things to never change?

Do you think all these things reported were made up and not sourced? Most people realize that this is a fan board. People pay to hear what people close to the program are saying before things are solidified. If the info is coming directly from the coaches, AD & BOR do you expect them to not communicate that in fear there is a small chance it goes the other way?

Like I said before they are not God and no one knows anything 100% except God Himself. 48hrs before Novosad decommitted id bet he himself thought he was 100% coming to Baylor. A lot can change in 48hrs and things dramatically changed in 48hrs. Sicem365 reported as things changed and we all knew he was decommitting before he did so.

So you're upset about being misinformed due not being on the paid board. Got it.

Rawyer Sobertson said:

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So you're upset about being misinformed due not being on the paid board. Got it.

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Nah, man. Not at all. Like I've said before, the most I care about when it comes to recruiting is a post telling me who signs, so I can look into them then. I'm too old to care about the whims of 17-18 year olds. If that's something that you get pleasure and fulfillment from, have at it.

I just know some folks in the Baylor fanbase felt misled, because it seemed clear Novosad was wavering, yet the only thing that seemed to be coming from insiders was "keep calm. Nothing to see here."

If you want to talk about lazy, lazy is never setting foot on a board until you saw another thread talking about it, rushing over, reading two posts and assuming you know the motivations of everyone in the discussion.

Rawyer Sobertson said:

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So you're upset about being misinformed due not being on the paid board. Got it.

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No, he's not upset about that. He's perturbed that when he points out that the insiders are frequently wrong at the end of the day, which you agree with, he's somehow the final straw to shutting the free board down. The butt-hurt is just super strange, and blaming the free board for not getting more subscribers is ridiculous. There will always be a free board, either under 365 or elsewhere. If it's elsewhere, you can bet the "attacks" on the 365 subscriptions will be much more frequent. At least keeping it here, they have a group of freeloaders like me who at least appreciate what they do.

Fair enough. I appreciate you coming over here and addressing it at all.

For the record, I am always available via PM, and could have probably even been convinced to edit or retract some things I said. There's a lot I don't know about running a college sports fan site, and I suspect that I would have come away with a new appreciation for how much work it is, and how many constituents you have to keep happy, all while reporting what you feel is the most accurate news, had it been handled differently.

When it got put on blast both here and on the Premium side, it made it a very public debate. I'm not necessarily a fan of that, but I'm not going to shy away from it, either. I'm going to let it lie from here on out.

Rawyer Sobertson said:

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Mitch Henessey said:

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- the miss on the BearsTruth report that Art Briles was going to be given another chance in May 2016. It was posted under a thread titled "Grace" or "Forgiveness," if I recall correctly. And yes, I was a paying premium member of that site at that time.

- the report in late 2016 that Chad Morris was going to be the new coaching hire to replace Jim Grobe. Thank goodness this turned out to be incorrect.

- the report that stated that Austin Novosad was firm in his commitment to Baylor less than 48 hours from signing day, at which point he decommitted and signed with Oregon.

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This is just lazy. Of course sourced information will sometimes end up going the other way. Do you really expect things to never change?

Do you think all these things reported were made up and not sourced? Most people realize that this is a fan board. People pay to hear what people close to the program are saying before things are solidified. If the info is coming directly from the coaches, AD & BOR do you expect them to not communicate that in fear there is a small chance it goes the other way?

Like I said before they are not God and no one knows anything 100% except God Himself. 48hrs before Novosad decommitted id bet he himself thought he was 100% coming to Baylor. A lot can change in 48hrs and things dramatically changed in 48hrs. Sicem365 reported as things changed and we all knew he was decommitting before he did so.

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News isn't news until it actually happens. Reporting false information as fact is reporting false information, regardless of what happened or changed in the process of getting there.

This is a problem across the journalism spectrum and it's only gotten worse in this age of unnamed sources and the prioritization of first over right. Calling something a "fluid situation" doesn't give one carte blanche to be wrong.

It's one thing to share hunches that are presented as such or to tell readers what you're hearing. But at the end of the day your credibility is tied to your sources and the trust you put in them. When information is wrong, you own it and accept the consequences of that.

I don't understand how people can say that the staff on this site is frequently wrong when the vast majority of their information is on the premium side. I certainly don't pay attention to all of their information and predictions, but it's been my experience at they are not wrong frequently when I do pay attention. Their information is overwhelmingly accurate and valuable.

And if and when they are wrong, just speaking for myself, I really don't care. This stuff is not that important to me in my life. I enjoy reading and discussing, and I enjoy the community, after wading through the knuckleheads that certainly exist on the premium side. I've never understood people that get upset or frustrated at predictions that turn out wrong.

I'll say again, I took quite a while to move to the premium side. Partly because I thought it was mostly recruiting information, which I don't care about. But mostly because a few morons would come over here to the free side, act a fool, and that gave me a bad taste of what I thought the premium side was. But it's not that at all. There's a lot of really great folks over there.

It's pretty fun when Ashley and a group of guys are live posting from their bus trip up to Norman for a weeknight basketball game.

It's really cool when people come together and give hundreds, maybe even a couple thousand dollars to one of our members who takes hundreds of underprivileged school kids to a basketball game and provides them with pizza, snacks and gear.

It's awesome when people donate thousands of dollars to help a member who just had very expensive major surgery so he doesn't have to be so deep in medical debt for years afterward.

You guys can say Ashley is butthurt or whatever - fine. But he's not. That's not the kind of guy he is. He's literally paying for this part if the website to exist, and he's taking **** from several people for asking if it's worth it anymore. What ridiculous entitlement.

One final note: if you didn't know, at the onset of Covid in 2020, ESPN 1660 management laid off the radio crew, and they were out on the street, so to speak. The owners of this website gave them a platform to start their show online, and it has been a fantastic success, beneficial for both sides, as well as Baylor fans and sports fans across the country. It's still free to listen, by the way.

BaylorOkie said:

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I don't understand how people can say that the staff on this site is frequently wrong when the vast majority of their information is on the premium side. I certainly don't pay attention to all of their information and predictions, but it's been my experience at they are not wrong frequently when I do pay attention. Their information is overwhelmingly accurate and valuable.

And if and when they are wrong, just speaking for myself, I really don't care. This stuff is not that important to me in my life. I enjoy reading and discussing, and I enjoy the community, after wading through the knuckleheads that certainly exist on the premium side. I've never understood people that get upset or frustrated at predictions that turn out wrong.

I'll say again, I took quite a while to move to the premium side. Partly because I thought it was mostly recruiting information, which I don't care about. But mostly because a few morons would come over here to the free side, act a fool, and that gave me a bad taste of what I thought the premium side was. But it's not that at all. There's a lot of really great folks over there.

It's pretty fun when Ashley and a group of guys are live posting from their bus trip up to Norman for a weeknight basketball game.

It's really cool when people come together and give hundreds, maybe even a couple thousand dollars to one of our members who takes hundreds of underprivileged school kids to a basketball game and provides them with pizza, snacks and gear.

It's awesome when people donate thousands of dollars to help a member who just had very expensive major surgery so he doesn't have to be so deep in medical debt for years afterward.

You guys can say Ashley is butthurt or whatever - fine. But he's not. That's not the kind of guy he is. He's literally paying for this part if the website to exist, and he's taking **** from several people for asking if it's worth it anymore. What ridiculous entitlement.

One final note: if you didn't know, at the onset of Covid in 2020, ESPN 1660 management laid off the radio crew, and they were out on the street, so to speak. The owners of this website gave them a platform to start their show online, and it has been a fantastic success, beneficial for both sides, as well as Baylor fans and sports fans across the country. It's still free to listen, by the way.

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Your entitlement angle is silly. No one here has questioned the SicEm365 ownership's freedom to run their business how they see fit. If they view this board as a hindrance to their goals and want to shut it down, they're more than welcome to do so, and virtually everyone who has taken issue with Ashley's original post has said as much. It is 100 percent his right to kill this board.

If there's any entitlement here, I would argue it's from the side that bought out an extremely popular free forum in an attempt to corner the Baylor sports discussion market and now seems angry six or seven years later that they haven't been able to monetize the few who have chosen not to convert from free to paying customers.

I understand not wanting to have your work bashed on your own site. That's fair. But if we're being honest, this side of this site has always been an afterthought to those who bought Baylorfans. There's no moderation whatsoever, and the owners' apathy toward the free side (which we're finding out in this thread is actually closer to antipathy) has 100 percent contributed to the inane paid vs. "poors" discussion we get every time premium posters go "slumming."

So if Ashley and Co. want to shut down the free board, they should. But it would be a really soft response to some pretty mild -- and in some cases valid -- criticism IMO. And it would further contribute to what I think is an earned reputation of being pretty thin-skinned when questioned.

As I said in my first response to Ashley's post, I think this site and its staff do a lot of things well. I'm glad the site exists and that they've experienced the success they have. But I don't think this back-and-forth has been particularly productive. And killing the free sports boards while allowing the absolute cesspool of a religion and politics board to run unencumbered would be a telling decision and one that would that would likely end my regular visits to this site.

I saw some comments on this thread that make me think my entitlement angle isn't silly, but I also don't want to distract myself from The Masters anymore to go find them. I'll cede and let that die. I don't mean it viciously.

As I just exchanged with Mitch Henessy in PMs, I wish you guys were on the premium side. You've always been one of my favorite posters, and when I made the switch to premium, I knew I'd miss your posts. You'd be a welcome addition over there. As I found out when I went over, it's not at all what I thought it was.

BaylorOkie said:

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I saw some comments on this thread that make me think my entitlement angle isn't silly, but I also don't want to distract myself from The Masters anymore to go find them. I'll cede and let that die. I don't mean it viciously.

As I just exchanged with Mitch Henessy in PMs, I wish you guys were on the premium side. You've always been one of my favorite posters, and when I made the switch to premium, I knew I'd miss your posts. You'd be a welcome addition over there. As I found out when I went over, it's not at all what I thought it was.

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I appreciate the kind words, but the fact that the split between the free and pay sides of this site is such a hard one is arguably the biggest reason I don't care to join the premium side. The premium posters have made it beyond clear how they feel about legacy BaylorFans/free posters, and generally speaking, the only time they come over to these boards upon subscribing is to act like absolute *******s to those of us who post here regularly. If Ashley is actually interested in understanding why there's a negative perception of the premium product on this board, he can thank his customer base.

I miss seeing your posts as well. Same with many others who used to post here and don't anymore. But I'm not really that interested in insider info or recruiting. The primary reason I go to message boards is to openly discuss the topics at hand, and I have no desire whatsoever to regularly interact with most of the premium posters who have graced us with their presence here.

Yeah, I get that. Two weeks before I did the $1 trial membership, I felt the same way.

To the Staff

If you do decide to shut down the free board consider this my thank you note for all the good threads, bad threads, hijacked threads & game threads over the seasons.

To the Free Board posters,

I have loved and hated most of you at some point but still I'd miss all of you... well I'd miss some of you... well maybe I'd miss one or two of you...

Ya the Briles thing was true. He was my neighbor on the river and thought he would be back. FYI I have seen him without sleeves when we were moving items up to the house due to the river rising during flooding! lol

I've missed out on a lot of the fun in both the private and public threads. I haven't read through everything yet, but I really hope that the Baylorfans and perhaps another 5,000 or more users that didn't migrate to 365 come back to Baylorfans. We've lost many great contributors, and there's definitely a need for that forum. I found the insights from many posters with insider information as valuable as anything on the paid or free sections of 365.

The private side of 365 is great for those who enjoy reading articles and updates from Smoak, among others. However, it also has its share of trolls and overly optimistic posters. Ultimately, it's all about entertainment and fostering the Baylor community, whether on the free or paid platforms. While I enjoy both, there are times I find both frustrating. Thankfully, the block feature is incredibly useful.

Brian Ethridge said:

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Feedemfishheads said:

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Ya the Briles thing was true. He was my neighbor on the river and thought he would be back. FYI I have seen him without sleeves when we were moving items up to the house due to the river rising during flooding! lol

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Had a great relationship with him. Haven't talked to him in a bit, but have talked to others on the staff. I was traveling to Jamaica Beach in the flood/rain that killed all the people in Brenham that day and got the call from a person crying. I got to JB around 2am, pulled out a bottle of Western Son and finished it by 4am. Then the death threats against my family started online, then to my real job, fun times.

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yea, Briles thought he would return. He was told so by Starr and a few regents. Another handful or regents joined forces and thought it was best to clean house without cause. Several people knew this was happening on the boards. Mods didn't have the regent inside info, but that is fine. Just posting what they heard although it was way wrong.

historian said:

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cowboycwr said:

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Those with inside sources like Blues bear sure have gone silent.....

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That's probably because Blues Bear was a UK troll. It is their color, after all.

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He posts with some regularity on here so I don't think he was a troll that created an account just for this.

I was in Lexington last weekend with a group of 20 for the horse races at Keeneland on Saturday. We always go to Malone's for dinner on Saturday night which is a steakhouse that has the John Calipari steak on the menu. The waitress told us they have been inundated with complaints about the Calipari steak still being on the menu. One of my buddies that couldn't make the trip this past weekend sent me the following very clever text knowing that we would be at Malone's.

"I'd be very curious to see if Malone's has a Mark Pope menu item. It would probably need to be a chicken dish. Something that would be your third or fourth choice, kind of plain, overpriced and not very good."

Jayman1963 said:

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I was in Lexington last weekend with a group of 20 for the horse races at Keeneland on Saturday. We always go to Malone's for dinner on Saturday night which is a steakhouse that has the John Calipari steak on the menu. The waitress told us they have been inundated with complaints about the Calipari steak still being on the menu. One of my buddies that couldn't make the trip this past weekend sent me the following very clever text knowing that we would be at Malone's.

"I'd be very curious to see if Malone's has a Mark Pope menu item. It would probably need to be a chicken dish. Something that would be your third or fourth choice, kind of plain, overpriced and not very good."

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And it you order the Mark Pope, the chances that your waiter will spill water on you are very high.

I agree Ashley's track record is bad if you isolate all of his misses and don't weigh them against the times he has been right.

Ashley Hodge said:

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on Briles, I definitely got that wrong. According to the person I was talking to (on the regents), they felt like he would be retained but obviously that quickly went sideways with meetings.

Chad Morris was probably a smokescreen as was Sonny Dykes in that coaching search, but we did break the Rhule news. Broke it on twitter and got a lot of grief from premium members on that.

Brian nailed the realignment stuff, he was probably one of the first to say Colorado and Arizona were coming.

We have good connections within Baylor athletics, sometimes with the coaching search stuff it helps, sometimes it doesn't. But for the day to day info on following the teams it is very valuable.

Not really looking for attaboys necessarily on the free side (or premium side) but it does hurt our ability to have people try premium when we have posters belittling what we do regularly. I've said my piece, no reason to go back and forth.

I know there are a lot of great Baylor fans on the free side posting. I'll get with Jason Stewart on a plan going forward and go from there. Appreciate all the feedback.

The "betters" comment made me laugh.

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Is there an option to kick a few dollars towards the site? Patreon or something like that? I'd be willing to pay a few dollars a month to help the free boards break even, but a premium subscription falls outside of what I'd like to commit to.