Kaldenberg Reigns Supreme in the NCAA Roster Editing Universe

NCAA Football 09 looks SWEEET! With the addition of new features such as home-field advantage (in which sideline cheerleaders shake their booty for you as you go in for the game winning score) and enhanced breakaway animation (which allows you to look like Reggie Bush as you continually cause defenders to break their ankles trying to keep up with your jukes), this game looks like a sure-fire hit. Except…

Well, except for one tiny complaint, and one that the designers can’t really fix no matter how much consumers complain about it. Due to NCAA amateurism regulations, the players’ identities have to be left blank. Hmm, I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time getting excited watching A throw to B. I would much rather watch Tim Tebow throw to his tight end, Tate Casey.

To remedy this, independent roster editors have dedicated themselves to filling in over 8,000 players’ identities for 120 teams. Most do this simply for the love of the game, but Brian Kaldenberg doesn’t believe in committing the 20-hour workweeks it takes to accomplish this important task for free. And believe me, he is getting paid handsomely.

Kaldenberg has come a long way since his start as an Iowa college student in 2004 working for Gamerosters.com. With the acquisition of rival sites, such as fkrosters and PXSports, Kaldenberg is practically demanding, “Show him the money!” While there are still services where you can get this for free, Kaldenberg believes people don’t want discount services since they don’t have the ability to be as accurate as his companies. And hey, he’s probably right. Free service means that they that can’t pay for people to help with this very time-consuming process, while Kaldenberg has both seasonal employees and a full-time business operations manager. How can others expect to compete with that?

The answer is that they really can’t. His ability to commit so many resources towards his product, coupled with the fact that he is uncannily able to get the games a few days early makes competing difficult. Meanwhile, it appears likely that his already large roster empire won’t be going anywhere but up. What I don’t understand is why people are complaining. If his service is superior to the others out there, what does it matter if his motives aren’t technically “pure”? While it might bug me, it doesn’t appear to matter as far as Kaldenberg is concerned. He doesn’t need your thanks or your respect…just your money.