Marquette Golden Eagles basketball and sports fans are used to the limited coverage of their team from local sources. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel made it a point to have it happen for years when they trotted out guys like Michael Hunt and Tom Enlund who barely gave a shit about the Golden Eagles. They have since righted that ship with Matt Velaquez who went on to be a tremendous Milwaukee Bucks reporter and now Ben Steele who does an awesome job in his own right. The AthleticWISC, the paid subscription website that caters to Wisconsin sports fans, is going through the same problems that the Journal used to have and it is raising concerns from the fan base.

Paint Touches, a well-respected blog in the Marquette world, challenged The AthleticWISC executive editor and former Journal Sentinel employee Jeff Maillet about the lack of Marquette coverage. They pointed out to Maillet how Jessie Temple does fantastic work for both Wisconsin football and basketball yet Marquette has not received any of that on their end. Maillet spent most of yesterday trying to defend the decision to not have a Marquette writer by saying the posts on the Golden Eagles did not drive any traffic hence they did not need to have a writer assigned to them. This feels flawed to me.

I’m sure the numbers say that Marquette coverage doesn’t drive traffic, but with a subscription-based outlet, you have to show your worth before people can sign up. Marquette fans are not going to come running to TheAthleticWISC if they do not feel like the juice is worth the squeeze. There is no wonder why the traffic is low. If The AthleticWISC polled their subscribers, I assume that less than 20 percent of them are Marquette fans. I’m one of them and truly appreciate the work they do, although, it would be great to see regular Marquette coverage. Maillet’s argument about traffic is a flawed one due to the lack of consistent content.

At the end of the day, the editor did apologize if he offended anyone plus mentioned it was ‘out of his hands.’ I enjoyed his candor on the topic. He provided honest answers, but I do hope this opens their eyes to the need for someone. Once the content starts churning out, they’ll see Marquette flock. Good Marquette content gets seen around the Internet. It might not seem this way compared to the Badgers, but Marquette has a great, nationwide fan base.

If you want my resume, feel free to shoot me a note. We can talk.

Charlie.