Become a Revenue Producer Within Your Athletic Department

In this ever-increasing financial crunch that we are under in both our personal and professional lives, coming up with new ways to raise revenue for your athletic department always perks up the ears of your administrators.

If you can provide a great service to your coaches, student-athletes, alumni, parents, fans and supporters of your program, but also a nice quarterly flow of income while doing so, I think it might be worth a moment of your time to read this entry.

One of the easiest and most significant producers of this revenue is through an All-Access Audio and Video live streaming feature on your website. If you use a subscription model (charging fans to watch the events), there is no cost to you and we provide a revenue sharing program which is in favor of our ICS clients.

We have clients at all levels adding this to their SIDEARM websites and are reaping the rewards not only from the praise of the constituents we mentioned earlier, but also those making on average at least $200 per quarter in revenue. Just most recently for schools that we reconciled from November to January the averages were $200+ for NAIA, $500+ for NCAA DIII schools, $800+ for NCAA DII and $1000+ for NCAA DI.

Surprisingly, you really don't need any elaborate equipment to pull this off and can start offering live broadcasts in a matter of a few weeks. In fact, much of the equipment you will need to produce the broadcast you probably already have on hand and the one additional piece of software is a free download from Microsoft called Windows Media Encoder.

Here is what you will need:

Hard-Line Internet Connection: It is recommended that a static public IP address be used for streaming. One IP address per facility is recommended, however, if the IP address changes we would need the new IP address at least 4 hours prior to an event. This IP address must be accessible from outside the campus network, you may need to talk to your IT department for internal network configuration.

If a public IP address is not available you can still stream your event using a PUSH instead of a PULL. ICS can assist with this simple transformation if necessary.

Bandwidth: For optimal performance, the system requires a constant 600 Kbps upstream feed from your encoder (laptop or desktop). While this is not a lot of bandwidth we have seen some universities put caps on the bandwidth available so it would be good to know that there is no cap or a high enough cap to stream the event(s).

Firewall: You should check with your IT services that there is not a firewall in place. If there is one we just need to make sure it is open for port 8080 (fairly standard port).

Video Camera: For optimal performance a Digital Video Camera is your best option. We have clients using all ranges of cameras from a low-end consumer camera to high-end professional equipment. In most cases we find clients use what they already have on hand as a department or in some cases what the coach of the sport you are streaming uses to film their games.

Video Source: You’ll need to know how you are getting your video and audio source. Any video capture card will work and in many cases your laptop or desktop will already have a video capture card installed. If your hardware isn't already equipped with a video capture card, we can supply a list of some inexpensive options.

If you are looking for a broadcast with more than one camera, then you might want to investigate a Mini Production System such as a TriCaster. This is a great option if you plan to have multiple cameras, want to do screen overlays (i.e., score)… You can learn more about this at: http://www.newtek.com/tricaster/ We have institutions at all levels that are using this type of hardware and could provide you with some of the schools using Tricasters.

Audio Source: Assuming that the camera has an internal microphone you can use that as your audio source. If there is another audio source (radio station that broadcasts from the event, etc.) you can use this as your audio source. This may require additional cabling as the announcer’s mixers would need to be connected to the encoding computer.

Computer Hardware: Any laptop or desktop running Windows XP, Windows 2003, or Windows Vista will work. We recommend at least 1GB of RAM(although the more RAM the better). Any of today’s processors are fine and are more than sufficient, the optimal processor would be a 2GHz or better.

Many of our clients have found the hardware needed to stream events in their IT departments cold storage or retired computers that they are provided for free.

Additional Help Needed:
Running Camera and Encoder: Most of the institutions we work with providing All-Access are running single-camera operations, thus the person operating the camera also manages the encoder which is really just hitting start and filming the entire game. After the game is over this person uploads the locally saved video of the game onto the server for those fans who want to watch archived games or watch it on a taped-delay basis.

Generally these people are student workers or some institutions actually pull from fields of study such as communications, journalism, radio/tv, film, etc. In fact, we have some schools that actually have a student-run campus television station that provides the feed and requires no work on the part of your department.

Optional Audio Play-by-Play/Color Analysts: This is either tying into a radio broadcast or providing announcers for this event only. The same process applies to the camera operators above pulling from resources on your campus or a student looking to gain experience.

Strategies for Those Already Doing All-Access and Looking to Boost Interest:
Some of these are simple and I am sure you are already doing many of them but it never hurts to state the obvious. "If you built it they will come" isn't necessarily the appropriate adage in trying to optimize the potential revenue of what the All-Access component provides. Just putting a link on your schedules and having an All-Access graphic is certainly going to provide revenue, but utilizing some of these tips might help you see a significant increase.

1. Prior to the start of the season, send schedule of live broadcasts to your coaches, staff, student-athletes, parents, fans, boosters, alumni office, etc.

2. Prior to the start of the season, send schedule of live broadcasts to opposing team SIDs, ADs, coaches and alumni offices

3. Prior to each upcoming live event, take a moment yourself or ask a coach (or both of you) send a personal email to the opposing coach to remind them you are streaming the game live and if they could pass along this info to their student-athletes to share with their families. At the least, I am sure the coach will at least send it to their family to ask them to watch the game (what coach have you met that doesn't have an ego).

4. Advertise the All-Access service in all printed pieces the athletic department produces, printed newsletter, email newsletter, game programs, media guides, booster club materials.

5. Send out an email blast to all newsletter subscribers the day before your next live broadcast

6. Provide All-Access business cards that you can hand out at special events or so your coaches can hand these out when they are meeting with special groups, supporters, etc.

7. Create stories and ads on your site in the days leading up to your live broadcasts

8. Have your campus publications place an ad or brief on the All-Access service you offer

9. Drive to your opponent's campus the day before your next live event and place posters all over the campus (ok I was trying to be Mark Frantz, but he is the resident comedian at ICS)

If the time appears on this blog, don't worry (not that you would) I don't typically stay up this late. My wife and I are renewing the process that Mark and his wife Kim are thankfully beyond now with late night feedings of the newest addition to the Joss Family in our second son Jace Connor born Feb. 20th. Having just fed him at his 1 a.m. feeding, I couldn't go back to sleep and I thought I would share my first of two posts to the blog this week.

Stay tuned later this week for tools that many clients may not have realized the fullest potential of or just some tips and tricks within SIDEARM 2.0...

If you have any questions about All-Access or would like to begin streaming live events, please email me jjoss@internetconsult.com