Point of clarification, I do not believe he is the owner of the site, I have to believe he is a volunteer scout of some sort, generally I don't believe scouts are paid on those kind of sites, now I could be wrong.
Secondly, I'm biting and replying even thou I'm fairly certain you are posting in a way to troll a bit, which I thought was against the rules on here, but I'm not an expert in that in any means.
So again, I'm an engineer whose background is in efficiency and productivity, making the best product and most profit for the least cost. I've done it for years to the point that I'm basically retired in my early 50s. Not a flex, just is what it is. I think your idea on the video may have merit because it knocks down cost considerably, which I'm sure is a major factor in Jordan's decision not to go to games, not that its more efficient.
The issue becomes the product and is it good enough to sustain that. I was a customer last year and their business model is good, it tries to get parents early and then continuously rank age groups to continue to get subscriptions. Its rather effective depending on the parents level of insecurity and need for information. You may get them for 3/4 years. I struggled with the quality of the lists, which varied significantly from what happened on draft day. That's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, as Jordan could be smarter then the entire OHL scouting community, the struggle is that with an early look at his list, its simply not true. I go back to my son, who Jordan had ranked very high. He was a late pick and while I appreciate Jordan's optimism in him, I don't see the OHL in his future next year, he is simply too far away. One of my sons teammates from last year was also rated highly (I was rather surprised given his position, relatively small size and low production), but was not drafted. Kids that Jordan had rated after him are already in the OHL and doing well. In 4 years perhaps he will on an overall average do better, but its not a great start. That's why I asked him about his 2007 draft and if he's done a critical analysis on previous rankings.
So as a guy who loves process and making things better, my first question if I was the business owner, would be how can we improve. Is it that Jordan simply needs more time to learn and grow, probably if its only his second year doing it. But if Jordan tells me that he doesn't go to games and OHL teams do (and scouts do), and I look at the list that doesn't look like its holding up already, then in my mind his process needs to change. Perhaps there would be an initial hit to profitability, but if going to games adds more quality to the list, then perhaps its worth it over the long term. Secondly, having him out with a jacket on and being seen buy potential customers may end up driving more business anyways, so going out may end up paying for itself in that aspect.
End of the day no one really cares I don't think, I just wonder if some tweak's to the process may make the list better, and in a round about way may help Jordan move up the hockey world. To another posters point, I don't imagine that there is a high demand in the NHL for video analysts in scouting, at least not with what he does, there's tons of guys who do in person scouting and that seems to be the apitite for NHL teams, probably due to accuracy. Most video of them from what I see are more mathematical and more driven by the ability to build modeling. Instat, which we had access to last year via our U16 team, has even made them a bit less needed.
