nationally televised high school games NEW television concept

There was an article in Forbes about a guy with a brilliant idea to scale out high schools sports by creating libraries of athlete footage from their high school years and broadcasting high school games on a national level.  Here's the link. 

Unfortunately, this idea is idealistic at best. Even though the intent is good, it seems as though he has not done any of the homework necessary to find out how feasible this is and it wouldn't have hurt if the writer of the piece had asked any of the hard questions.  Here's why I wouldn't put stock into

Most major high school districts have very lucrative local cable contracts - in our district, we just negotiated a three (3) year deal where we receive $18,000 per year for the rights and pay $1,000 per football game that they choose to broadcast. The cable agreement also gives the cable network ownership of the footage so when you do catch lightning in a bottle and send a kid to the pro's, they can get some of their money back by selling the footage to larger groups that own rights to those teams and leagues. 

We've also already done "made for tv" basketball for ESPN2 facilitated by Paragon Marketing out of Illinois and set up a game with Austin Rivers (now playing for Duke) got on the same court with Michael Gilchrest (now playing for Kentucky) and made another 10k off that to help support our athletic programs.  At the time, they were the #1 and #2 ranked players in the country.

Of course, ego can get into play and some people will turn on high school games but unless you are a serious die-hard and/or have a connection to the school, athlete or programs, this isn't an area where you are going to attract enough viewers to justify the outlay of costs.  For example, the ESPN2 game I referenced above (with easily two of the best high school players in the country last year) had less than 300,000 viewers nationwide.

There is also no mention on the fact how they'll pay crews to make these games watchable. We've talked about school video departments and students handling the film shoots but the quality wouldn't work for mass distribution of game footage and the truth is that mass audiences don't watch "sports" - they watch elite athletes play sports. That's why minor leagues can't attract crowds and few D3 colleges get media contracts.

The video equipment most high schools have isn't top-of-the-line equipment and many schools haven't ordered new video equipment with all the budget cuts so the footage would look second-tier anywhere outside of a local school broadcast.  Are you telling me I'd be watching ESPN's 30 for 30 series on my Hi-Def and suddenly not notice a high school girls volleyball game being shot on an iPhone? 

High school sports has it's role and we've seen many other areas turn into money-making machines.  Disney turned the League World Series into a cash cow creating an event worthy of the $3.7 million they paid to give ESPN broadcast rights in 2009 in order to air the summer event. 

I just believe, even in that situation, you are watching the best of the best.  Heck, I love the olympics but I just don't know if I'd sit through a local gymnastics competition watching 14-year olds on a pommel horse.

ticketing idea

Here's an idea to consider:  If your school or school district has always ordered your athletic tickets (or even if you have allowed an oustide company to "provide you free tickets,") try to work with other surrounding school districts to do one large order.  This will:
-Allow you the opportunity to work with larger advertising budgets since companies often can't spend more than a specific amount of money in smaller areas;
-Drive down the price of the per ticket cost.  A good cost to shoot for is about a penny and a half per ticket.

Plan now for 2012

If your school is serious about advertising by next fall, you should be planning for these things over the next two (2) months:
Parent Guides (any beginning of school publications sent home that you can sell in to)
Fall sports (most districts have fall football where 80% or more of the total paid crowd attendance for the year are found so this is where your advertisers want to be)
Establishing your online advertising program (check past blogs for the things you need to know BEFORE you start an online advertising program)

Now go bring money into your schools :)

The Extinction Burst

In Behavioral Pyschology, they call it the extinction burst.  Look for it when  you decide to get serious about what outside companies have access to your schools and students. 
For example, recently one of our high schools stopped a relationship with a company that was "doing the school a favor by providing free plastic footballs and other promotional items."  The company claimed they were doing this to support the school and provide them with giveaways. 

Here's the rub:  Companies like this don't care about your students, don't care about you, don't care about your schools. 

Companies that handle promotional items and want you to sign some poorly written fax giving them authorization to represent your school are going to start directly competing with your school fundraising.  They are going to call the local businesses in your area and ask the local business owner to pay their company to put names on the footballs and they will most likely phrase it to the prospective buyer that they will be "supporting [your school name here]" 

Companies that "provide" or claim "they are doing you a favor" are most often doing this because they make money off it.  Big money.  Don't believe me?  Here's the response from one company that had an extinction burst in the middle of her email and lashes out at the school athletic director.  I've provided her name and phone number in case you actually are looking for free promotional items to have to clean up after football games and not make any money off of....  Here is the well-played interaction of our athletic director (in order of the exchange)...

Hi

I have a client of mine that is interested in donating some souvenir footballs or squirt water bottles to the cheerleaders to throw out to the fans at the home games this fall. They're done in your school colors with your school name & mascot and the business' logo information. Please let me know ASAP if you are able to use these this fall, as we have a meeting coming up to budget for these.
Thank You,
Cheryl Stoker
Promotions Coordinator
1-800-245-6929

The athletic director is no dummy and probed her for who the prospect was....
"Do you mind sending us the name of that Client. I would like to clear that name before we ok anything like that."


The company actually tells the school without an agreement in hand (Well played by the school) and then shoots off this reply:

Yes, I think we will contact them ourselves, have the balls made, and keep the money in town.

And, now...Wait for it....  wait for it... here comes the extinction burst.  When you start bringing money back into your schools and out of the hands of misrepresenting companies, you too will get your own emails looking like this:
I have been working with xxxxx High School for numerous years, providing free spirit items and ensuring them from year to year. We handle all aspects from securing the sponsor, artwork design & layout, printing, shipping and invoicing the sponsor. We ensure continuity from year to year and when a sponsor no longer sponsors the item, we try and secure another sponsor for whatever the items the school is looking to do. I have worked hard to provide these items and secured xxxxxxxxx as the sponsor a number of years ago. I'm sorry you feel the need to be greedy and take money out of my pocket, but I will make a note in the file to not work with xxxxxx High School again.

Thank You,
Cheryl Stoker
Promotions Coordinator
1-800-245-6929

What we can learn:  Companies like this more then often do NOT put a company name in their signature line because they change company names so fast and so often when things start to go bad.  They also normally have an (800) number and a very common last name along with NO website and or accredidation from the BBB... and, for some darn reason, they normally stem out of Texas when you run the phone records.