Since the news broke a month ago that On3 was acquiring Rivals, there's been a lot of questions about what that would mean for fan sites that were represented on both platforms. In some cases, the fan sites for a particular program will be continuing on both Rivals and On3. In other cases, the Rivals fan site is being merged into the On3 site.
I can confirm that Hawkeye Beacon fits into the latter scenario.
After June 30, Hawkeye Beacon will cease to publish.
As of July 1, iowa.rivals.com will redirect to Hawkeye Report and on3.com/teams/iowa-hawkeyes. Tom, Blair, Kyle, and the rest of the Hawkeye Report crew will continue doing what they do and have done so well for many years.
As Shannon Terry, founder and CEO of Rivals and On3, says above, Rivals members will have access to Hawkeye Report at On3. Current Rivals subscription should be converted into On3 subscriptions. The user clout and reputation data for Rivals users will also be merged into the On3 site.
Historical message board posts from Rivals will also be integrated into the On3 site, although that won't be ready as of July 1. The how/when/where/etc. of that transfer will be revealed in the future.
None of the current Hawkeye Beacon staff will be moving to produce Iowa-related content at Hawkeye Report. We have no ill will toward the HR folks and wish them well as they continue to cover the Hawkeye beat with passion and dedication.
We will continue to cover Iowa sports and publish posts on Hawkeye Beacon through June. I believe all of the old Rivals posts -- both from the Hawkeye Beacon era and from the earlier Hawkeye Report era -- will be available in the archives after the merger, but we may have to wait and see how that works out.
I'll say a proper goodbye later, but for now let me say that it has been a thrill and an honor to help shepherd this site for the last 2.5 years. We took over on January 1 of 2023 and though there were some hiccups along the way, I'm very proud of the work that we produced and the coverage we provided for Iowa fans of Hawkeye football, men's and women's basketball, wrestling, and Olympic sports.
I'm indebted to the great work that Adam Jacobi and Eliot Clough produced for the site day after day, week after week, and month after month. I'm also grateful for the excellent contributions we got from Braydon Roberts, Eric Ruttenberg, Mark Hasty, Bobby Loesch, and Andrew Houk over the years. They all provided the recaps, breaking news, analysis, breakdowns, previews, and more that kept things churning here at Hawkeye Beacon.
As I said, we'll still be around -- and still be publishing -- for the rest of the month, so this isn't a total goodbye. But I wanted to provide an official update on what was happening and what the future would look like here at Hawkeye Beacon and at On3/Rivals.
