Sports in Action
Sports in Action, a Texas high school sports marketing agency, manages and operates three major Texas sports properties – the iconic Dave Campbell’s Texas Football brand, The University Interscholastic League (UIL), and Texas Coach Magazine for the Texas High School Coaches Association. With a rich background in sports, McLane Group’s first and most famous entity was the Houston Astros baseball club. The Texas sports tradition continues through Sports in Action. Together with Adam Hochfelder, veteran of the sports marketing industry, the McLane family brought the iconic Dave Campbell’s brand back home to the Lone Star State after acquiring it in 2014. The team at Sports in Action has over 50 combined years of work in the sports industry in Texas. In January 2021, Dave Campbell’s Texas Football acquired Texan Live and rebranded it, Dave Campbell’s Texan Live which streams over 1000 live high school events every year.
Additional business interests and consultative projects operate under Sports in Action, which concentrates on sports related marketing.
Introduced in 1960, Dave Campbell’s Texas Football is the only publication to preview every team in Texas, from the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans through every level of college football and the roughly 1,400 public and private high schools in the state that field football teams. The annual magazine known as “The “Bible of Texas Football” is issued each summer, prior to the start of pre-season football, and counts more than 400,000 loyal readers. The Dave Campbell franchise includes the Texasfootball.com web site which features a daily web show, Texas Football Today and partners with Bally’s Southwest to produce Bally’s Football Friday, and Dave Campbell’s Texas Basketball.
Sports in Action also sells sponsorships for the University Interscholastic League (UIL) and its Texas high school sports properties. UIL was created by The University of Texas at Austin to provide leadership and guidance to public school debate and athletic teachers. Since 1910, the UIL has grown into the largest inter-school organization of its kind in the world.
Sports in Action manages the production and prints the trade publication Texas Coach Magazine for the Texas High School Coaches Association. The THSCA has more than 23,000 members who receive this publication printed nine times per year. Additionally, Sports in Action sells sponsorships on a limited basis for THSCA.
For many people, buying their copy of the DCTF summer edition is a big event for their year. It signals that the hot days of summer are almost done and high school and college football is around the corner.
—Drayton McLane Jr.
