Philadelphia is home to a variety of niche and alternative news outlets. These publications and websites target specific segments of the population based on demographics, lifestyles or hobbies. A handful of publishers in the market take a narrower approach and devote time and resources to cover a specific theme. One such website, growing in popularity over the years, covers a subject near and dear to many Philadelphia sports fans – basketball.
City of Basketball Love is a digital news site dedicated to the high school and college basketball scene of southeastern Pennsylvania; the NBA and WNBA are not covered. Josh Verlin started CoBL in 2012 with co-founder Andy Edwards after a one-year stint at PhilaHoops, a small blog covering college basketball. Today, CoBL is a non-profit entity, which has garnered a significant reputation as the premier voice for amateur basketball in the region.
Becoming the co-founder and editor-in-chief of a basketball news site was not the initial career path for Verlin, who started CoBL as a law student. The website allowed him to expound on his love of the game while providing a creative outlet for his writing in between semesters. He did his own “recruiting,” bringing on board 13-15 friends from various college journalism programs who volunteered their time to provide content.
“When I started CoBL, I thought it would just be a place for a bunch of college kids to write about local basketball,” he said. “What it’s become over the last 12-plus years is something I never imagined in my wildest dreams.”
Using the connections made during the PhilaHoops days, Verlin and his team quickly received the credentials needed to cover NCAA games, a big boost for the start-up website. However, to keep the site faithful to its primary mission, journalists reported on Philly-centric basketball events only, a tradition that continues today. Games involving the Big 5 schools of Philadelphia (LaSalle, Penn, St. Joseph, Temple, Villanova, and recently added Drexel) and national games featuring Philadelphia-area players are the predominant college news stories.
But while college games are a prominent feature on the website, CoBL’s primary focus continues to be high school basketball and college recruitment. It is the “meat and potatoes” of coverage since the site’s inception, Verlin stated. Journalists fan-out across the city and surrounding Pa. counties bringing readers scores and highlights, in-depth player profiles, the latest news on recruiting and more.
CoBL runs one-day basketball camps which give college recruiters a chance to watch promising young high school players in action. Post-Covid, CoBL extended its coverage to include girls’ and women’s games, including college recruitment. The decision has been met with success. Of the 1,200 articles posted last year, 43% covered some angle of the women’s side, increasing overall traffic to the site.
Verlin is proud CoBL shines a spotlight on high school players and provides them with a type of “public relations” vehicle. Another great achievement he cites is the number of sports journalists who started their careers at CoBL. Whether as volunteers or paid interns, staffers gained valuable experience, which has led many to careers as journalists, editors, and coaches. Verlin relishes his role in fostering a new generation of sports journalists and editors.
