[4] Initial deriving revenue solely from advertising, Rivals.com later employed a subscription fee of $10.00 per month to users for access to the latest recruiting news and to participate in various message boards dedicated to schools covered by the network.

Rivals acquired AllianceSports, a regional network that primarily covered college sports in the Southeast of the United States, in January 2000.

[5] At its peak, Rivals.com employed close to 200 people, operated a network of 700 independent websites, filed for an initial public offering worth $100 million led by Goldman Sachs, and sponsored the Hula Bowl in Hawaii.

[6] However, economic troubles and the collapse of the dot-com "bubble" soon led the Rivals Network, the parent company of Rivals.com, to cease operations in 2001, though it never sought bankruptcy protection.

[7] Heckman, who had been fired as chief executive officer, later started a competitor network named The Insiders, which was later renamed Scout.com[7] and sold to Fox Interactive Media in 2005.