Sports Scouts

Sports scouts travel an average of three weeks out of every month, and they are away from home most nights and weekends. While on the road, they stay in hotels and eat most of their meals in restaurants. They travel often by car or bus and also frequently by plane.

Workdays on the road are quite long. A sports scout may be on the road by 7:00 A.M. to drive four hours to meet with a player and watch an afternoon game. There may be another game to see that night in another location, or the evening may be spent reviewing video of games attended over the last few days.

Long hours and near constant travel are typical of work as a sports scout, and more often than not, there is little reward for the effort. A scout may recommend several hundred players over the course of his or her career and only a handful of those players will ever make it to the professional level. Despite this, dedicated sports scouts continue to visit isolated diamonds, tiny high school and college gyms, and the cracked concrete of the urban ball court looking for the next superstar.