Crimsonace, business owner: Hand out, will travel

Audio for now, video is coming.

There has been a big $$ fight over webcast rights to the playoffs. Emmis currently holds them (as well as the broadcast rights) and, believe it or not, uses them, so nothing there. (they have right of first refusal for playoff games, exclusive for the State Finals in all sports; we can do prelim games if they're not doing them for a rights fee).

We're already teamed up with one of the largest high school message boards in the country. My partner is its version of Moddy .

I was mostly looking for sales advice, if anyone had ever done any. I'm a helluva pbp announcer, but I'd struggle to sell food to a starving person.

 

He's a tempermental Nats fan with sore feet?

I admire what you're doing and completely understand how it feels to feel as if you couldn't sell food to a starving person. That's why I'm in this fucking racket...cause I can't sell shit. Hopefully selling a product you're passionate about generates some salesmanship you never knew you had. Good luck.

 

Wait, what? What happened?

 

a couple of thoughts...

Is there some sort of trade you could do with an advertiser or the school to get in the program to promote your broadcast?

I don't know that you would be competition for program ads, etc. Indeed, it could be another outlet and more publicity for the games would help everybody.

Maybe you can give highlights of each game to people on a website.

Can a website be used for advertising and for your broadcasts?

Is there something you can do to get the students at the schools interested? Maybe this would work because it would be new media.

 

Do schools charge you a rights fee during the regular season? I'd think they'd want to get a buck or two from someone trying to make a buck off them, but where I am, schools let radio and cable TV in for free just for the pub.

 

Yes, I'm being an attention whore for once. We did manage to raise enough $$ to get on the air and pay for our equipment and airtime.

I'm trying to work within the school where I work to get students excited. They seem to be interested, and even if they won't listen live (because they'll be at the game), they'll listen to archived broadcasts.

Since I asked for advice earlier, I'll at least let you know that our first game broadcast is this Friday night (sure, you all will be out covering games yourselves). If you can, click on the link and listen for a minute or two. Hopefully, it's a step up from your typical local yokel broadcast team.

http://www.audiosportsonline.net/Crossroads/2008Football.htm

 

I don't know anything about your business, but $20 a game does seem to be a terrible lowball.

What happens if this year is a big success, everyone likes you and next year your rates go up to, say, $65 per game? Or $80 per game, as was suggested earlier? That's a huge jump that could turn off sponsors who, as expected, love that low rate.

Don't sell yourself too short. Best of luck with the new venture.

 

$20/game is a lowball package ... it's the lowest of 3 packages we offer.

For Internet only, with little promotion, in a bad economy, when the school is asking every business in town for several hundred dollars in corporate sponsorship, there's not a lot of $$ left in a lot of the small businesses in the communities.

The long-range plan is to find our way onto a terrestrial radio station (the Internet deal was somewhat last-minute). For the current advertisers, I'll probably find a way for them to stay on at a slight increase from their current rate, and essentially have a "renewal" rate and a "new" rate. Basically, the 'Net rates are about 40% of what we'd prefer to charge for a terrestrial broadcast.

 

Man, are you gonna hear it from the Eastern Hancock fans for shutting them out.