Jeff Welsch: 406 MT Sports is flying high after benchmark sports year

Perfect, I thought, wondering if the symmetry was with intent or pure harmonic coincidence.

Seriously, is there a more iconic area code in America?

And, it occurred to me in those moments before jetting back for the final weekend of 406 MT Sports’ eighth school year, what a perfect metaphor for Montana’s go-to source for statewide sports (406mtsports.com).

We are, you might say, flying high — thanks to you, our readers.

I’ll admit it: Last summer, when we finally nudged 406 MT Sports out of its cushy nest and charged a modest fee — $4.99/month, or roughly the two slices of pizza and a soda portion of your next $1,200 weekend Costco adventure — to anyone who didn’t have a subscription to one of our five Montana newspapers, I held my breath.

Our industry has been pay-to-peruse since the first scrolls rolled off the Gutenberg press, but when 406 MT Sports took flight in 2016 it was as a free trial balloon.

After paying for print without batting an eye for nearly six centuries, readers have spent the past quarter-century begrudging opening their wallets for the same content digitally. How would Montanans react after seven years of pro bono sports coverage?

My anxieties were quickly quelled. Other than a small handful of social media snickers, many humorously rebuked by fellow followers chiding any grousing about actually having to pay for a quality service, Montanans who value great content for great sports have remained loyal during this benchmark year for our site.

I’ll admit this, too: When our action-packed eight months of Cat-Griz and high school football followed by high school basketball ended, I held my breath again thinking readers might take a spring/summer sabbatical.

We continued to add subscribers, right through a busy final Memorial Day weekend that saw our 406 MT Sports staffers spread across the state. 

And while I’ve said it previously here, I’m again compelled to salute a committed contingent of collaborators who help make this unique endeavor hum: The athletic directors, coaches and others who carve time in their frenetic schedules to input high school results, enabling us to produce our most complete examples yet of our popular The Blitz for football and Full Court Press for basketball.

Have I mentioned holding my breath?

Since the debut of our 406 MT Sports “portal” four years ago, we’ve asked coaches to do what they’ve done for decades, but in a different format requiring a modicum of tech savvy. Instead of cauliflower-ear phone calls – imagine taking a scoring summary, including spelling every name, after an 83-68 6-Man football game – they now tap summaries into our portal.

Given the new fee, I expected some pushback from a few who’d perceive they’re doing our work for us, even though fundamentally it is the same as before: Coach submits, we write. As such, we offered free subscriptions to all those “content creators”.

Here again, a happy ending.

Exhibit A: A veteran eastern Montana football coach who’d left his position for a few years only to return last fall. When first told about the portal, he was receptive but skeptical; he also liked the phone calls, even after those 83-68 shootouts.

One trip through the portal made him a believer.

“This is great!” he said.

Indeed, getting kids’ names in the paper has never been easier, faster, timelier or more accurate. Boxscores are online as soon as “save” is hit, and because rosters are inputted in week one spell-checks are nostalgia.

That 83-68 game? Once up to a half-hour of coach and reporter time, now it’s a few minutes for a coach to fill in the blanks and a couple minutes for us to write it up after the portal notifies us it’s here.

So what’s next for 406 MT Sports as we seek a cruising altitude?

We’re hiring a full-time reporter in Missoula to blanket western Montana. High on my wish list: Beefing up Great Falls and the Hi-Line.

We also aim to cowboy up even more on our rodeo coverage. As it is, nobody covers ropers and riders like our John Letasky, and this week our Briar Napier will be in Kalispell for the Montana High School Rodeo Association finals.

Meanwhile, we continue a shift away from boilerplate game coverage to stories about compelling people and events. Coming this summer: The revival of our popular “Montana Greats: From A (Absarokee) to Z (Zurich) the greatest athletes from 264 Montana communities” series, with some new surprises (think Seabiscuit).

When we christened 406 MT Sports in 2016, some held their breath. Won’t people be confused when Montana’s inevitable growth requires a second area code? 

To me, it’s instantly perfect.

Whether in a phone contacts list or on an airport reader board, 406 and Montana will always be synonymous.

Just as 406 MT Sports will always be synonymous with the best in Montana sports — and a bargain at those Costco pizza prices.