Leave paper and start paywall site?

[Sports Barf]

What makes you confident you can steal a few contracts away from Big Jostens? Not being sarcastic just curious

 

[Slacker]

What makes you confident you can steal a few contracts away from Big Jostens? Not being sarcastic just curious

Durrr, maybe read the thread?

 

[Sports Barf]

Durrr, maybe read the thread?

I don't skulk this site all day shirt for brains

 

[Pilot]

I don't skulk this site all day shirt for brains

Durrr, maybe read the thread?

Hey, this thread is for shirtting on life-long dreams, not each other!

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

Hey, this thread is for shirtting on life-long dreams, not each other!

Shut up!

 

[SFIND]

Also consider ... people will right-click save photos or screenshot them instead of paying for them. Others might jack them and post them to local Facebook pages and groups. These little things will eat into any revenue.

Oh, yes, that's a big issue re: photography.

I've already got a plan to try to combat that. A limited number of photos will be on the paywall site itself -- 1-2 per feature story and 5-6 per game. All will have small watermarks. Galleries will be posted to the photo sales platform we're using for the photography website, with big, fat watermarks across the center of each photo. That sales platform doesn't allow for right-click, save as (yes, savvy people like myself will know a workaround, but most in the general population don't). That won't stop screenshoting, but it won't be that good of quality.

And the main revenue source for photography won't come from spec action sales, anyway. That market dried up years ago due to that stuff. We'll be targeting youth league and school booster groups and offering them packages to do team/individual photos and banners, plus offering action photos throughout the year to interested parents through them, with the league/school obviously getting a nice cut. A big item for one of the local photographers who beat Lifetouch is including a end-of-season poster in packages, which is made of a cutout of the kid and a couple of action shots through the season.

 

[Mngwa]

Oh, yes, that's a big issue re: photography.

I've already got a plan to try to combat that. A limited number of photos will be on the paywall site itself -- 1-2 per feature story and 5-6 per game. All will have small watermarks. Galleries will be posted to the photo sales platform we're using for the photography website, with big, fat watermarks across the center of each photo. That sales platform doesn't allow for right-click, save as (yes, savvy people like myself will know a workaround, but most in the general population don't). That won't stop screenshoting, but it won't be that good of quality.

And the main revenue source for photography won't come from spec action sales, anyway. That market dried up years ago due to that stuff. We'll be targeting youth league and school booster groups and offering them packages to do team/individual photos and banners, plus offering action photos throughout the year to interested parents through them, with the league/school obviously getting a nice cut. A big item for one of the local photographers who beat Lifetouch is including a end-of-season poster in packages, which is made of a cutout of the kid and a couple of action shots through the season.

Big watermarks. Use big watermarks

 

[SFIND]

I probably fall on the more pessimistic side. I'd be very wary of how much people actually would care to pay to read HS sports. I don't mean to be a huge ass, but just thinking through my own fears and doubts about such an idea… I do know a few people who do vaguely what you're suggesting, and manage to pay the bills, so I'm probably too negative, but…

It's easy to tell ourselves that everyone cares about HS sports when we're at a game and getting a "glad you're here" from some thankful mom and a coach, but I'm sure it's not an accident preps coverage has been slashed so drastically across the country. Maybe the stands are packed but how many of those people will also read a story when they get home? Is going part of the social scene of the town and/or school, or do they really care about that defensive shift in the second half?

The vast majority of the people who care, certainly who care enough to potentially pay, are the players and their families, and that's an ever-changing group, so you may get someone for football and they could be over it by January, or June. Even if your school has 1500 kids, how many actually participate in sports in a way their families would want to read about it? I'm just afraid you'd be talking about a few hundred potential customers, and you'd be doing well to get half of even that group.

But that's my experience and my observations. I'd love to see an idea like yours work, and if it could pay the mortgage, we'll, that could be a damn fine and fun way to live. I wish you the absolute best.

This is my biggest red flag. What makes you think you could get to 1,000 people paying for the product?

While I agree with what another poster said about this seeming a bit hasty, it also seems like you've thought out a fair amount of scenarios. My advice would be to go for it. Make the change. Take the risk. But do have realistic expectations - otherwise not only will you not have your finances right, your mental energy and enthusiasm for your new project will be greatly diminished.

Unless the stands at the games you cover are packed for every game, or were pre-pandemic, I would think long and hard about this. The most likely subscribers are the players' parents. The players, not so much, especially if mommy and daddy subscribe. What is the average playing career on the senior varsity teams? I'd guess two years in most cases. There would have to be a lot of overall interest in these teams for this to work because if it were my kid I'd subscribe for two years tops and that's only if he/she was a star. Most of your energy could go into sustaining subscribers. I can't tell you how many memos I used to see from my now former publisher on subscriber "churn".

Thanks for all those thoughts.

I came to the 1K number based on the paper's page views and my experience with the people in the area. High school sports is the only game going around here, with a much more loyal, passionate following than in areas closer to the major metropolitan REGION.

It's still very valid question if that many are willing to pay. I'm not going to charge much, but it's more than the "free" they're used to. But again, I'll also be targeting the undercovered sports just as much as the football team. Soccer and cross country will get far more coverage than they ever have. For my experience and from talking to the school's ADs, those are the loudest groups re: being "left out," and the ones with the most money.

 

[SFIND]

What makes you confident you can steal a few contracts away from Big Jostens? Not being sarcastic just curious

By offering what the big, national companies can't. The local photographers who've beaten them here include shooting events and athletics in with their normal photo-day services and provide the school with photos to use on social media and for yearbooks. They also contract with the district to make its booster groups use them for banners and similar products that are normally contracted independently by each booster organization. The school therefore gets a cut of sales stuff they otherwise don't.

And, of course, a FOIA to see exactly what the big national companies are offering, and offering a better kickback to the districts.

 

[wicked]

We've seen a few school districts around here signing on with one local PR shop, which specializes in a la carte municipal contracts. Stuff that was covered 15, 20 years ago by the local paper isn't anymore, and giving the paper a press release/photo on a silver platter is low-hanging fruit.

Why I mention that is that I could see photography working the same way, as you alluded to above. Maybe you don't even sell photos online, you just tease what you have and set up a booth at select events along with a list of various framing options.

I've heard NFTs referred to as digital sports cards. I know nothing about them, other than what I hear elsewhere. Could something like that be utilized for high school sports coverage?

 

[ChrisLong]

Don't forget to budget for the expense of keeping SJ.com on retainer as advisors.

 

[sgreenwell]

There are sites like MyCapture that can handle the merchandising side for you. Meaning, "Hey, I want this photo in a frame, or on a mug." One shop I was at, the sales price was split between MyCapture, the paper and the individual photographer, in order to incentivize us to upload big photo galleries. After about six months, I was getting $20 to $50 a month from it - Not great, but decent enough considering my cut was something like 5 or 10 percent, can't remember which, and I wasn't really taking photos close to full-time. I've always thought that this was low hanging fruit for a lot of newspaper companies that they didn't even explore, since it was usually hellish to buy photo copies at most places I worked at.