I’ve had friends and family ask me what I want Inside Our Game to become. My answer is always “To be honest with you, I want to be better than any web based sports content platform out there.” WARNING, this is me spitballing here, so if there are grammar mistakes or anything else, forgive me.
There are great platforms out there, some that I look up to and try to mold my actions around. But I feel we can do better for the sports, players, coaches, and most importantly fans/parents.
One goal that I aspire for is to provide fans with an affordable streaming service that will provide fans and parents of high school athletics, no matter the sport, an outlet to watch sporting events if they cannot be there.
By affordable, my plan is to provide a streaming service that has a pay per view, monthly, seasonal, and yearly plan. This would not effect content on my website including brackets, articles, and schedules that I provide. That will continue to be free content, there is no point in making you pay for that, unlike other places. Here is a price breakdown of what I think is reasonable:
Pay-Per-View – Less than $10 depending on the event. If it is 1 game than price for admission at the stadium. If it is an all day or multi-day tournament than less than $10 per event. That will be 1 cost for the whole event even if it is multiple days.
Monthly – $3.99 per month and it is cancel at anytime. This will include all sports that we will be able to stream.
Seasonal – An average season is 3 months so this price would be at $9.99. This would equal to $3.33 per month. It would be broken down into Fall, Winter, and Spring and this subscription would cover all sports for that season that we can stream.
Yearly – $49.99 for the entire year. This includes all sports that we can stream.
Subscriptions will only impact live streaming content. In no way will anyone have to pay for other content on my website.
Not only do I want to provide this streaming service, but provide students at the individual schools with the opportunity to gain experience in production, broadcasting, camera work, and all that goes into providing excellent broadcast coverage. To many times students want to join extra-curricular activities other than sports but there is no substance or valuable experienced gained from it. I want to provide high school students who want to someday work in broadcast journalism or just journalism with the opportunity to gain valuable experience so that when they get to wherever they go after high school, they have already been there and done that.
How would I do this? I would approach schools individually, sports conferences, or districts and propose a plan to live stream all events. What that deal is, I do not know, but I would like to imagine that I can kick back a percentage to the schools athletic programs in the earnings that IOG would make off of streaming those events. I would have to look at the rules of money flow in high school sports and see what I can do in that way.
Now I know that not everyone can stream events. I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere and streaming events was an absolute nightmare. I would try to find the best possible way to include local channels that come standard with every TV company. I would work out a deal that would allow them to broadcast “games of the week” and playoff events and postseason championship tournaments if I can get as far as working a deal out at the state associations. My goal is to provide this coverage in any and all states not just the state of Pennsylvania where I currently am at.
What I need to do to achieve this goal. I need to grow a following and find support behind IOG. Through less than a year of Inside Our Game, the website has grown further than my expectations and it has motivated me to create better content. Though I have not made a single penny off of my website yet, I am very excited to see the growth of Inside Our Game.
I will, at some point, need to hire a staff to ease my workload and let me focus on further expansion. If anyone is willing to work for free, then I will gladly take your help and hope to pay you someday. Until then, I am on my own and will continue to work hard to grow IOG.
I want to start a sports show talking about the various sports at some point. Right now, I do not even have a place where I would be comfortable doing it or even the equipment to do so. So, that is the first step in this process.