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The New WCHA (2013-14)

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Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

uaafanblog said:
Yeah that's all good. I just want to emphasize what I've been thinking and saying outside of here. Giving the streams away for free is a long term investment for the league. Exposure in canadia will help recruiting when jr. players there see that the hockey is every bit as good as any they are seeing on CBS Sports or whatever.

If the member schools are convinced they can make 2 or 3 dollars selling their product they need to be made aware that such short term thinking isn't going to help anything.
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Uhm, this isn't free...its it would cost each member school more than a couple thousand dollars to do this for FREE. I do think aparch's $$ are inflated from what would be required to break even and I do think there should be a game of the night that is free and maybe have archived games available for free 48 hours after the game or something.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Shirtless Guy said:
Uhm, this isn't free...its it would cost each member school more than a couple thousand dollars to do this for FREE. I do think aparch's $$ are inflated from what would be required to break even and I do think there should be a game of the night that is free and maybe have archived games available for free 48 hours after the game or something.
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It would cost them a couple of thousand dollars a year. Yep. It's a marketing expense. There will be more product out there for the targeted consumers (potential recruits) on mainstream easy access sources. The WCHA ain't gonna get a mainstream TV contract (who's benefit for a school outside of the big ten isn't the revenue but the exposure) so giving the product away (on multiple platforms is fine) is the only clear way to "compete" with other leagues.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

aparch said:
Yep. Lots to be desired by the way calls are made throughout the game, and as noted, the periods themselves. There also seems to be a bit of a hesitation with some of the officials on who makes the call, even though both water winged zebras are allowed to make the call.

It's frustrating to watch as a fan, because you never know just when a gritty play is really a penalty, or why that mauling was legal.
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Players make mistakes. Coaches make mistakes. Even the media makes mistakes. But the stripes must never make a mistake. One thing fans never seem to realize either is that the view from the stands, or the look you can on TV in HD Super Duper Slo-Mo is often quite different from what the refs see at ice level moving at 30 mph. That being said, I have been critical, even quite critical at times as well. But we never seem to notice that call that was missed against our team, but if a borderline call against the other team is missed, well, then it's time to have the officials drawn and quartered.
 
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Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

uaafanblog said:
It would cost them a couple of thousand dollars a year. Yep. It's a marketing expense. There will be more product out there for the targeted consumers (potential recruits) on mainstream easy access sources. The WCHA ain't gonna get a mainstream TV contract (who's benefit for a school outside of the big ten isn't the revenue but the exposure) so giving the product away (on multiple platforms is fine) is the only clear way to "compete" with other leagues.
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A couple thousand per year? Maybe for single camera, hook up to the radio broadcast type video. However, folks advocate a BSU style broadcast (replays, production, etc.) and you should know that BSU pays upwards of $3000 per game. Add the infrastructure (at least $15,000 per broadcast quality HD camera - and don't tell me that you can buy one at Walmart for $100, that ain't gonna cut it) and you think that's a reasonable marketing expense? Think ~18 home games a year (let's call it $2000 to be on the low side) and that's $36,000 for personnel alone - BSU has the two on air announcers, four camera men, a floor producer, a director, replay coordinator, and a graphics guy. Think those folks all work for free?

Listen, I'm all in favor of a Roku channel set-up, but to ask for increased production for free is ridiculous. If you're fine with the current production put all in one place, now you're talking.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

moose97 said:
A couple thousand per year? Maybe for single camera, hook up to the radio broadcast type video. However, folks advocate a BSU style broadcast (replays, production, etc.) and you should know that BSU pays upwards of $3000 per game. Add the infrastructure (at least $15,000 per broadcast quality HD camera - and don't tell me that you can buy one at Walmart for $100, that ain't gonna cut it) and you think that's a reasonable marketing expense? Think ~18 home games a year (let's call it $2000 to be on the low side) and that's $36,000 for personnel alone - BSU has the two on air announcers, four camera men, a floor producer, a director, replay coordinator, and a graphics guy. Think those folks all work for free?
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Are you dim or trying to start an argument?

Listen, I'm all in favor of a Roku channel set-up, but to ask for increased production for free is ridiculous. If you're fine with the current production put all in one place, now you're talking.
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Yeah um ... maybe you should have read what I wrote? Where did I say anything about increasing/improving productions? Why in Wayne Gretzky's name would I advocate that every school spend a bunch of money and then give away the webstream?

EVERY school in the new WCHA already has TV production arrangements of some sort. They ALL offer pay-per-view webstreams. All I've suggested is that in the future they give those away as a marketing tool FFS.

Hint for the future -- not everyone in this thread is damien goddard.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Everything has a pricing limit. Every fan base contains the 10% die-hard fans you could charge $500 per game to watch on line and they will pay it. On the other hand there is another 10% who *****es about $5 for parking and they won't pay $1 to watch a game on line. The key is you need to capture the 80% in the middle and get a fair number of them to buy into it. Price it at $50 or under and you'll make it up in number of subscribers. The school should be prepared to broadcast the games at a loss if necessary and write it off as a promotion / advertisement for the university. Run commercials for your degree programs during the breaks and promote the school and get your costs back through grabbing a few additional students next year. What does a 30 second commercial in prime time TV cost? If you have someone watching your broadcast, you're getting 100% of their attention for 2.5 hours and most of it is focused on something related to your school. What is that worth?

I don't think is is reasonable to expect any WCHA team to suddenly start a TV broadcast company so they can show games on line. I would be happy with a good quality video feed and then just lay the local radio play by play over the top of it. Get some students to run the cameras, you don't need guys from NBC Sports to pan back and forth to follow the puck. This formula will give you a "pretty good" video product with reasonable costs. If someone wants replays from 12 angles in HD, then stick to watching the NHL or the Friday night college game on OLN/Versus/NBC.

Ryan J
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Relax, we're all friends here.

First yes we are asking for additional assets to go toward this. No question in order to do it some schools, not all, are going to have to put in a few more assets, but that's up to them. If your school has a big production team that's great for you.

2. whatever is done, we need to do our best to be revenue neutral to what they spent the year prior. After all money is extremely tight and we want all these programs to flourish. Yes it is a marketing tool that down the line will help the league.
AND, I think we can add content and get money for that content, whether it is from some small amount of advertising or charging a fee for some of it, such that the channel/site will be desirable and accomplish our goals.

3. It seems to me the league would really be asking all the teams to make their video streams available, and would promise to make them whole financially in exchange. I can tell you if I were in the east I would love to be able to watch Ferris for a reasonably cheap fee.

It would be wonderful if all the content were free but that's not reality as of now, but sure sometime yes.

I bet the NHL is getting revenue from sources they never expected based on their doing this. So yeah, make game highlights available immediately for free and charge until a certain time afterwards for the games, but keep it minimal.

I'd be willing to pay what I do now for the Tech games, plus a slight surcharge for all the other games, not just the home ones. Look at it as marginal revenue if you like. Your team gets the same revenue stream it did, plus a cut of the revenue for the all games package. The league could use that revenue to add more free content or to return to the schools, whatever. I'd also pay slightly more than I do now for some additional premium content, kind of like uscho extra. As long as it's reasonable and I get good value for the money. And there is no reason some ads can't be sold once things get going, I mean the uscho sells ads for their blog talk radio show. I'd make those transactions arms length transactions though.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Shirtless Guy said:
feel free to name those "top refs" because I doubt anyone can actually name them. Although, personally, I think the issue is leadership, not the refs themselves.
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There are very few refs in the WCHA that are worth anything. Don Adam, Todd Anderson and Tim Walsh are the three worst... Then it's pretty much a wash from there.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Goon said:
There are very few refs in the WCHA that are worth anything. Don Adam, Todd Anderson and Tim Walsh are the three worst... Then it's pretty much a wash from there.
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I can't believe you don't put Marco Hunt in that group?
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Shirtless Guy said:
I can't believe you don't put Marco Hunt in that group?
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Because Marco Hunt and DShep are the best of the worst in this league, I find them to be the least offensive. I would like to see the NCHC start fresh maybe the can pluck some USHL/NAHL refs.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Goon said:
Because Marco Hunt and DShep are the best of the worst in this league, I find them to be the least offensive. I would like to see the NCHC start fresh maybe the can pluck some USHL/NAHL refs.
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I think DShep is one of the best of the worst but Marco just doesn't appear like he knows what he's doing out there most of the time.
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Shirtless Guy said:
I think DShep is one of the best of the worst but Marco just doesn't appear like he knows what he's doing out there most of the time.
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That's why I call them the best of the worst, because I think the refs are that bad in the WCHA... I have talked to Derek a few times and he seems like a fun guy...
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

Just a bump to say:

Michigan Tech and Bowling Green have advanced to their respective league playoff tournaments.
Ferris State is firmly planted in the NCAA's (barring some weird playoff changes).
Northern Michigan is on the bubble for NCAA's.
Bemidji State and Lake Superior both are TUC's.

New WCHA is making some noise this year...
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

aparch said:
Just a bump to say:

Michigan Tech and Bowling Green have advanced to their respective league playoff tournaments.
Ferris State is firmly planted in the NCAA's (barring some weird playoff changes).
Northern Michigan is on the bubble for NCAA's.
Bemidji State and Lake Superior both are TUC's.

New WCHA is making some noise this year...
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Pick up the pace Alaska schools!!!!! :p
 
Re: The New WCHA (2013-14)

aparch said:
Just a bump to say:

Michigan Tech and Bowling Green have advanced to their respective league playoff tournaments.
Ferris State is firmly planted in the NCAA's (barring some weird playoff changes).
Northern Michigan is on the bubble for NCAA's.
Bemidji State and Lake Superior both are TUC's.

New WCHA is making some noise this year...
Click to expand...

On behalf of the purple maverick fans, I want to apologize for not contributing.
 
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