Rivals is now charging high school athletes $499 for evaluation & ranking consideration

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For decades, college football recruiting networks have made a business out of selling their expert evaluations and inside information on high school recruits to the most rabid of college football fans. Now, it seems one of those networks is flipping that model a bit and targeting the high school athletes themselves.

Throughout the history of recruiting networks like Rivals, 247Sports, ESPN, and On3, it’s been common for each site to evaluate and rank the top recruits in the country. Historically, these athletes have been discovered and evaluated naturally, with the sites’ reporters and scouts talking to coaches, attending high school games, watching tape, and attending recruiting camps.

One of those sites, however, has made a radical change.

Rivals, which On3 acquired last year, has rolled out a new program that lets high school athletes pay hundreds of dollars to be “evaluated” for “ranking consideration.” The site now offers athletes a chance to “get evaluated by a Rivals Scout” for $499 (though there’s currently a 20% off promotion that makes the price just $399). The site promises a scouting report, an evaluation grade, and ranking consideration.

“The goal is simple: evaluate more athletes, discover more talent, and create more opportunities. And do it with the integrity of Rivals at the center and the reach to ensure athletes who earn recognition receive the exposure they have earned,” Rivals writes of its new program.

The site says that this new program will allow more athletes to be evaluated by Rivals scouts, not just the top players.

“There is far more talent worth evaluating than the traditional recruiting ecosystem has historically been able to cover. In football alone, more than 1 million boys participate in high school football, while Rivals has typically carried approximately 6,600 star-rated prospects across the senior, junior, and sophomore classes at any one time. Rivals Recruits allows us to evaluate deeper into the talent pool and help identify athletes who may ultimately compete at the FBS, FCS, Division II, NAIA, Division III, and other levels,” Rivals states.

“Traditionally, national recruiting services have concentrated their resources primarily on prospects projected to play at the highest levels of college football. That represents only a small fraction of the total high school athlete population.”

While Rivals does state that the evaluation allows for “ranking consideration,” the site insists that payment does not guarantee a certain rating or star designation.

“No. Ratings, rankings and stars are earned, never bought. An athlete can purchase access to the Rivals Recruits evaluation process, but payment does not guarantee a rating, ranking, star designation or any specific evaluation outcome,” Rivals writes.

This change comes just a few months after 247Sports began prioritizing its own player ratings rather than the 247Sports Composite player ratings that blend the ratings from all the various recruiting networks.

247Sports announced back in March 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 national scouting staff and analysts.