On3 and Rivals vs. 247 Sports On3 and Rivals vs. 247 Sports
By Kevin Harrish on

The college football recruiting media industry has been engaged in a near-constant Cold War for over a decade, as subscription sites have competed for writers, subscribers, scoops, and overall supremacy. Recently, though, things have been heating up, and it’s palpable.

For those unfamiliar, current On3 and Rivals CEO Shannon Terry effectively created the college football recruiting service industry as we know it, founding all three major players in the ecosystem. For over two decades, Terry has been at the center of the industry, for better or for worse, connecting all the competing sites together through his history with each of them.

Terry helped co-found Rivals in its current form back in 2000. After Rivals was sold to Yahoo in 2007, Terry eventually left the site in 2009 once his noncompete agreement ended, and started 247Sports in 2010 – in the same building as the Rivals headquarters, mind you. In 2015, Terry sold 247Sports to CBS and left the site in 2020. Terry then founded On3 Sports in 2021, and, in a full-circle move, On3 acquired Rivals from Yahoo last year, which brings us to the current unpleasantries between On3/Rivals and 247.

On3 and 247Sports have been competitors ever since Terry founded On3 in 2021, using what was essentially an identical business model as 247 – a network of school-specific message-board sites with free articles, but a larger focus on a subscription model that puts premium recruiting information and insider reporting behind a paywall for the most rabid of college football fans.

The two sites have coexisted mostly peacefully for the past five years, especially with Yahoo-owned Rivals acting as a sort of buffer. But the obvious friction and inherent competition between the two sites have been bubbling over lately.

On3/Rivals Poaches 247Sports Writers

One of the first major barbs between the two came in 2024 when On3 hired Director of Recruiting Steve Wiltfong away from 247Sports. Wiltfong, who has developed a reputation as perhaps the most plugged-in national recruiting insider in the country, said in his announcement that On3 was “on track to emerge as the leader in the space” as he praised Terry.

“I’m incredibly excited to join the On3 network, where I’ll reunite with some of my favorite people in the industry. The company’s leadership, innovation, and creativity has On3 on track to fully emerge as the leader in the space. Shannon Terry invented this entire arena, founding Rivals and 247Sports. On3 will be the best one yet,” Wiltfong wrote at the time.

It was a significant blow to 247Sports and a great gain for On3, as the site sought to bolster its recruiting coverage. Then, On3 announced another rather significant development for its recruiting coverage when it acquired Rivals in April of 2025, putting both recruiting networks under one umbrella and effectively adding hundreds of recruiting writers and insiders to Terry’s network.

Things were relatively quiet between On3/Rivals and 247Sports in the months following the On3/Rivals merger, but things escalated at the beginning of the month when Rivals added two more high-profile national recruiting analysts – Allen Trieu and Brandon Huffman – as well as two entire team sites, with 247Sports’ Colorado site and UCLA site moving to the On3 network. This was four very significant moves in one direction in a short period of time, a feat that not even Phil Leotardo could pull off.  What would be 247 Sports’ answer?

247Sports Prioritizes Its Own Rankings

For over a decade, the 247Sports Composite player ratings have been the industry standard, widely used across the college football media landscape (unless an outlet is contractually obligated to use its own in-house ratings, like Rivals, ESPN, or On3).

The 247Sports Composite ratings are an even blend of the player rankings from the major recruiting services – currently, 247Sports, Rivals, and ESPN – giving a holistic view of how a player is evaluated with no recruiting service carrying too much weight.

While 247Sports has its in-house ratings, it has long used the composite player ratings for its official team ratings. You could tell tension was building between the networks during this exchange, in which On3’s Luke Stampini commented on the thoroughness of Rivals’ evaluations versus 247Sports, after a 247Sports executive insinuated that Rivals’ recruiting rankings were influenced by recruits getting offers or committing to certain schools.


On Wednesday, 247Sports announced that, starting with the 2027 recruiting class, it would no longer use its composite player ratings to calculate its official team recruiting rankings. Instead, 247Sports will use only its own internal player rankings from its own national scouting staff and analysts.

“This update reflects our belief in the strength and consistency of our own evaluation process,” 247Sports wrote in its announcement on X.

It’s worth noting that 247Sports will continue to calculate and publish its 247Sports Composite ratings, but those ratings will no longer be used to calculate the team recruiting rankings.

This change came just three days after Trieu, Huffman, and the two team sites. Though it’s not clear whether or not it’s related to those moves, it obviously adds to the cold tension between On3/Rivals and 247Sports.

Rivals Issues a Strong Response

Predictably, this move from 247Sports elicited some strong reactions from those around the industry, with some 247Sports writers pounding their chests and throwing shade at their competitors, while On3/Rivals writers clapped back. Of course, Terry had some thoughts, too.

In a lengthy post on social media, Terry politely implied that this was a dumb move from his former site, as he rather dramatically called the composite ratings “the single smartest product decision in the history of recruiting media.”

“When we launched 247 back in the day, the Recruiting Composite changed our growth trajectory. 247 was never sourced until this product,” Terry wrote in a post on X. “It pushed most media outlets to switch to sourcing 247 vs Rivals and ESPN at the time. To this day, I believe it is the single smartest product decision in the history of recruiting media.”

Terry argued that the nature of the recruiting industry “demands” a composite rating, arguing that it mitigates bias, improves predictive accuracy, corrects outliers, and “prevents one media brand from inflating a team class.” With 247Sports diprioritizing their own composite ratings, he made it clear that Rivals is ready to “carry the torch.”

“Now that it is our time to carry the torch, we will get in the lab and work on making the Rivals Industry Ranking more accurate and more robust than ever,” Terry added.

Later that day, Rivals threw some not-so-subtle shade at 247Sports, which announced that its Rivals Industry Team Recruiting Ranking was “the ONLY composite ranking in the industry,” weighing the Rivals, ESPN, and 247Sports ratings equally.

On3 Sports quickly shared the post, adding its own shade.

“Industry Leader: Unbiased, equally weighted and comprehensive,” On3 wrote in its post. “The ONLY composite Team Recruiting Ranking lives on Rivals.”

Needless to say, what has long been a somewhat frigid competition between On3/Rivals and 247Sports has seemingly escalated into a full-blown public feud, and it’s probably not going to end anytime soon.

Those old enough to remember can recall the original recruiting network war between Scout and Rivals. Fast forward 20 years, and it looks like we’re heading towards a similar feisty rivalry.

About Kevin Harrish

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