They are NCAA approved services that sell evaluations, verified information and athlete data to universities. This allows a coach to more efficiently vet through the recruiting areas he is responsible for.
There are a number of scouting services across the United States.
They are approved by the NCAA to sell data to universities and do not charge athletes money!
They aid a college coach in his search for recruits saving him time. If a coach is responsible for recruiting an entire state, it would help to have a trusted third party tell him who they believe can play at the college level.
That is exactly what they do. It helps the coach save time and cuts his evaluation list down to a more manageable number.
This is huge to understand as a parent.
There are a lot of companies that claim college coaches search their database and will search your son more if you pay them money.

As a staff, we are frustrated to see this. We believe families are getting taken advantage of across the nation.
When you really understand how the recruiting process works, you will see this too. Our hope is for you to be able to spot this out!
Scouting services' source of revenue is the university, not the athlete.
Think about the conflict of interest if a scouting service charged an athlete..
They would keep their lists limited, only including kids who paid..
Is a college coach interested in only the athletes who have paid for the scouting? No. He is interested in FINDING THE BEST TALENT.
That is why college programs PAY these services. They want unbiased, robust data that includes ALL the athletes who play at the collegiate level.

This has been a huge mission of ours at AthleticOutlook. It's largely why we recently created this email series. We want as many parents as possible to understand this.
This is a huge shift in how recruiting works. Hudl, in conjunction with scouting services, have changed the landscape.
There is an epidemic in the market taking place of misleading information & services that come at massive cost to families.

"Recruiting Network to discover, evaluate and eventually sign athletes"
Just as James Franklin of Penn State said above, these services go right in the trash and as we highlighted explicitly college coaches use Hudl and Scouting Services that are free to athletes.
This is a crime. They are claiming to parents who are unaware to the process, who simply want what is best for their son that they are effectively Hudl or a scouting service.
This business model is based off of you as a parent NOT understanding how the process works, attempting to convince you that the more money you pay them the more exposure they can get you.
Now, it is not our job to bring other companies down, its our job to teach you how the process works so you understand what is a valuable investment and what is not!
At AthleticOutlook you are not paying us to have your information to be searched on a website that college coaches do not check.
You are paying for the time of a former NFL or college coach to deliver his coaching expertise & recruiting knowledge personalized to your son.
Our cost of goods are coaches & coaching, not a sales team.

To tap into scouting services, we first ensure our athletes are best selling themselves prior to identifying the proper scouting service to be in, based on your families location. Then we ensure he is in that database.
Below is an email we sent to a database that wasn't taking Canadian athletes in our program. 

This showcases how you properly increase exposure for your son primarily for D1 & D2.
You want to follow all the instructions we listed on how to run an efficient Hudl profile, ensure you have a well organized highlight tape and lastly, be on the databases that coaches actually utilize.
There is personal outreach you can do on top of this that we will cover in great detail in the proceeding lessons. Personal outreach is more effective in the lower divisions. (D3/NAIA)
In our next lesson we will finish covering the last piece on how college coaches identify prospective prospects in their recruiting area..
..high school coaches.
See you then!