Program Blueprint

Mount Vernon High School Monetized Their Focus Broadcast with Sponsorships

By Rebecca Roy on October 14, 2021

Student population: 400
Town size: 4,500
Sports using Focus: 4
How they monetize: Sponsorships
Amount made in 2020–21 school year: ~$15K

The Why

Like many schools who recently got started with monetizing their livestreams, for Mount Vernon (Iowa), it all started with COVID-19. Athletic director Matt Thede was looking to make up for lost gate revenue and keep their fans engaged.

The Who

Thede was already using a Hudl Focus camera to film events in Mount Vernon’s gym. And since Focus has livestreaming capabilities, he knew it’d be a simple process to start monetizing their livestream.

Thede started looking for broadcast partners. From an internet search, he narrowed it down to OBS. It was free and had good reviews—Thede figured it couldn’t get better than that.

The How

Next up was choosing how to monetize: charge fans to watch the broadcast or find sponsors to support the broadcast? Or both? Thede decided early on to go the sponsorship route. But he wanted to go further than having ads in the broadcast, Thede wanted to really give the sponsors something back.

“We pitched it as ‘Gary’s Foods (or any other paying sponsor) is paying for this broadcast so be sure to stop by and support them too. They’re paying for your entry.’ This allowed us to provide even more value to sponsors than what we were already doing in our printed programs,” said Thede.

As far as finding sponsors, Thede didn’t do it all on his own. He formed a team of people and they made a list of local businesses to approach. They also came up with tiers of support for sponsors to choose from.

“We had different levels, there were in-game sponsorships and entire season sponsors,” explained Thede. “You could have your logo on screen all game or get a spotlight as an ace sponsor for volleyball or a three pointer sponsor for basketball.”

When approaching sponsorships, it might help to have multiple tiers for them to choose from. — Follow Mount Vernon’s example and come up with options for your sponsors.

Thede also wasn’t content to simply have the broadcast available. He wanted to add the Mount Vernon branding, to make it something everyone could be proud to support. “Mustang Vision” was created and circulated as the broadcast to watch the school’s events on. It didn’t hurt that Focus gave viewers the best seat in the house.

Broadcast software like OBS make it easy to add advertisements to your game livestreams. — Add an extra touch to create a brand for your school’s broadcast.

Another major step to getting fans to tune in? Finding a sports commentator who could really get the people going.

“Our announcers stay pretty neutral, so even the opposing fans love our commentary,” Thede said. “We get emails from people in opposing towns about it. The trick is to find someone who’s super passionate about it and professional with it.”

Game Day Process

Thede helps set up their Mustang Vision table with their commentary gear.
They pull up OBS on a laptop, and since their Hudl Focus camera is connected to the same internet, the feed is sent straight to their OBS software and they can do an audio test.
Then all they have to do is plug the stream key from YouTube into OBS and push the “Go live” button. It starts going straight to YouTube with their commentary and sponsorship ads from OBS.

The Future

Even though Mustang Vision has only been going for one far from “normal” school year, Thede has every intention of keeping it running.

“We plan on doing a broadcast for the foreseeable future,” said Thede. “Our fans really appreciate it. I think there’s still people who will stay back and want to watch [the broadcast]. Also, we really don’t know who was watching from home that never came out in the first place. I don’t think this year will provide all the answers, but as soon as we get a “normal year,” we’ll know a lot more.”

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t making any changes. For this next school year, Mount Vernon’s marketing class will start shooting commercials for local businesses who want to sponsor their broadcast. They plan to charge $500 for each commercial as a new way to generate revenue for their booster club and athletic department fund.

If you’re still getting started with monetizing, take Thede’s advice on teamwork.

“Find people who are passionate about sports. Nobody is ever short on ideas, but you have to empower them to do it. If [broadcasting] was just on me, it wouldn’t be getting done.”

Add Hudl Focus to your team for an easy way to get started with monetization.

Evidence of Excellence

By Brian Williams on April 13, 2020

This article was written by Mike Neighbors, Head Women’s Coach at Arkansas.

Coach Neighbors previously coach at Washington and he produced this document while there.

He puts out an incredibly good newsletter several times each year.

If you would like me to forward your email address to him to be added to his newsletter, please reply to this email and let me know.

You can enlarge the view of the document by scrolling your cursor over the frame and then clicking the arrow that displays at the top right of the frame.

There is a link at the end of the frame that the document is in to be able to download the entire 24 page PDF document.

If the document does not show up for you, please refresh your page.

Taking too long?

Reload document

Open in new tab

Download [254.72 KB]

Beware of Season Slippage

By Brian Williams on February 5, 2020

This article is republished with permission. The original article appears at Beware of Season Slippage.

We’re at that stage of the season. No matter the current level of success of our teams, coaches and players alike are susceptible to mid-season doldrums. The reasons are varied but include the following:

Pre-season and early season excitement are on the decline.
Schedules get daunting and can beat down a team or individual players.
At various levels, travel alone can be exhausting. (I’ve always said that if normal non- basketball playing persons JUST traveled the NBA schedule or many college schedules, it would knock them on their butts.)
Conference opponents’ scouting gets more detailed and actions that were easier in November and December become harder in January and February.
Both players and coaches forget small, basic thoughts that keep them on track. As examples, “Block out your man as far as away from the rim as possible-so as to “own” more space on long rebounds” and “You need to close out on a shooter in stages-you can’t get there all at once.”
Human nature takes over and many people “big-time” the familiar.

Whatever the reasons, all coaches have to be on guard for season slippage. The other night I was watching a team on the tube that I see often and very soon I observed that they were 5-10% “off” in the energy and focus area. That’s all it takes to slip enough to be significant and the team in question got behind by double digits. After the half, the energy and focus resumed to normal for this team but the first half damage had been done and the comeback came up short.

If a coach knows or suspects slippage from his team, there is no better way to illustrate this to players than by isolating on video 5 possessions with high energy and focus from an earlier game and compare them to 5 lower energy possessions from a recent game. Graphic proof always resonates better with players than verbal generalizations.

How do you prevent slippage with your teams? Let us know in the comments section below.

Limiting Reactionary Subbing

By Brian Williams on January 24, 2020

This article is republished with permission. The original article appears at Limiting Reactionary Subbing.

To expound on the past Hoop Coach article , “Thoughts on Playing Rotations”, we’d like to share some thoughts on a related subject.

Whether or not we’ve ever labeled the type of substitution we’re about to discuss as “reactionary substitution”, we all clearly know the practice.

At one time or another (and maybe even regularly) we’ve all yanked certain (or even all) players on a mistake (or even all mistakes).

Sometimes we have done it in a dramatic fashion, embarrassing the player and others for sure, and maybe even ourselves in the process.

If we’ve been smart about it, we’ve watched other coaches pull players on mistakes in subtle ways (as late as possible during a dead ball, during a time-out, after the first of two foul shots and other such moments) so as to avoid the embarrassing aspect of the method.

Of course, we’re all entitled to sub any way we wish but I contend that the less we sub in a reactionary way, the better off our team will be in the long run. The following are some thoughts to consider:

Generally, a consistent rotation is preferable. The more players know why and when they will play, their preparation can be better which can help them acclimate to the game more quickly. Of course, team and individual matchups and other factors enter into the equation but we’re talking in general terms.
In support of the consistent rotation theory, just recollect your own playing days and how important it was for you to understand your role as well as you possibly could.
Players who get the hook on first mistakes play “looking over their shoulders”. Obviously, this is not an ideal way to play as it never breeds confidence into these players.
Even worse than yanking some players on first mistakes is allowing other players to play with total immunity by allowing them to make large numbers of similar mistakes.
We’re obviously not talking about effort gaffes or sharing the ball concerns. Most of have very little tolerance in these areas.
If we do have to pull players quickly, we’d be well advised to learn and practice the subtle tricks mentioned earlier in this post. The less we sub in a reactionary way, and if and when we do, doing it in ways where we don’t “lose” that player will go a long way into building the strongest rotation possible.

Concepts on Winning basketball

By Brian Williams on January 20, 2020

This article was written and submitted by retired High School Coach Dave Millhollin.

I have included more information about his coaching career at the end of the article.

Caoch Millhollin has contributed several insightful articles to the site. You can find links to more of them at the bottom of this post under the “Related Posts” tab.

If you would like to contact Coach Millhollin, email me and I will put you in touch with him.

The importance of shot selection, defensive strategies, and rebounding

Why are basketball games won or lost? The answer to this question can be incredibly simple or quite complicated. Coaches spend unbelievable amounts of time and energy on this topic, most of the time, they realize the obvious but fail to understand the simple.

This article is intended to delve into the simple answers of the question.

Basketball has been at the center of my life for as long as I can remember. Growing up I played on the playground and played organized ball of one kind or another from the 3^rd grade through college. My dad was a high school and Jr high coach. I have coached girls and boys from the second grade through high school throughout my adult life and I was a high school boys varsity coach for 27 years. Through all of this I don’t think I fully understood the essence of Winning Basketball until about half way through my high school coaching career (around age 40).

All my experience and observation of the game of basketball has led me to what I believe to be the essential elements to Winning Basketball. It can be summed up like this:

“Teams that take better shots and get more rebounds have a tendency to win more games than teams that don’t.”

Most of us believe teams who take good shots are more likely to shoot a high % and because of that; improve their chances of winning. Most of us also believe that teams who control the boards have a better chance of winning than teams who don’t. I think most of us are correct.

The effect of good shots on rebounding

Missed good shots result in more offensive rebounding opportunities for the shooting team.

If you want to get offensive rebounds; take good shots.

Missed good shots also result in fewer fast break opportunities form the opposition.

If you want to stop your opponents’ fast breaks; take good shots.

CRITICAL CONCEPT; Teach your team to take shots the other team can’t fast break on.

The effect of defense on rebounding

There are three questions every coach should ask himself regarding defense;

Is our defense giving up good shots?
Is our defense putting our opponents on the free throw line?
Is our defense giving up offensive boards to our opponents?

For offensive transition oriented offensive teams there is a 4^th question;

Is our defense giving us fast break opportunities?

I asked Bo Ryan one summer about this topic and he said his defensive philosophy was to try to get his opponents to take bad two point shot attempts, then get the rebound. His teams did it through defensive containment.

Here are some helpful defensive ideas that can produce opponent bad shots:

Don’t let them run their offense;
- Take away their entry passes and entry drives
- Don’t let them get the ball where they want it
Don’t let the high post or low post catch the ball
Play defense with hands up
Close out “head up” or PUSHING ELBOW
Collapse with help (early) on drives and recover to kick outs early
Deny the ball to their scorers in the spots they score from
Teach how to defend the “lanes”; passing lanes, driving lanes and cutting lanes
Teach “never let your man cross your face or back” for individual off ball defense
Shade shooting hand on close outs
Do not over deny off the ball; do not encourage back door cuts.
Double the ball early on isolation plays
Switch all “away screens”
Apply “smart” pressure that does not foul and does not give drives or backdoors
Finish all defensive drills with block out or “face out” (for 3s) execution
Defensive communication

Some of the things on the above list are not what most coaches are used to. My teams quite were served very well from; not allowing the ball in to the low or high post. Think about it; teams score from the low post either from post moves, free throws on drawing foul down there, offensive rebounds from missed low post shots or from kick out or kick > swing passes out of the low post. It is amazing to me how many teams at every level allow the ball to be caught at the block!

As for the high post; when the ball goes there to an impact forward or post, that player normally scores, unless he is helped on. When he is helped on he kicks it to a player who is open for a shot or drive. We believe that getting the ball to the high or low post helps teams get good shots; therefore, keeping teams from getting the ball there can significantly reduce their chances of getting good shots.

The other two things on the above list most coaches are not used to, but served the teams we coached significantly well are; playing defense with hands up and closing out from the baseline side (pushing elbow), not “sideline, baseline”. We wanted the drive to go to the elbow one dribble with immediate help, then recover quickly to the kick out pass. This reduced baseline fouls and fouls on our bigs. This greatly reduced our team fouls and opponent free throw attempts, just as important, it lead to poor % two point attempts from our opponents.

This defensive approach greatly increased our defensive rebounding and almost eliminated opponent offensive rebounding opportunities. Remember; offensive rebounding increases teams’ ability to score on put-backs, open kick out shots and fouls on the put-back.

Rebounding

Shot selection and defense are the two biggest keys to rebounding. I believe that if coaches would spend as much time teaching and working on these keys as they do on heart, toughness and effort; their teams would get more rebounds. I am not suggesting to stop teaching heart, toughness and effort. What I am saying is that as far as priorities are concerned when it comes to rebounding they should be, in my opinion;

Shot selection and Defense
Rebounding concepts and techniques
Heart, toughness and effort

In that order

Our teams were pretty tough and played hard with heart but, funny as it might sound; my teams routinely outrebounded teams that were tougher than us and beat teams that played harder than we did.

Execution by playing smart with proper technique brings about winning.

About the author of this article, Coach Dave Millhollin In fourteen years at Ponderosa High School, Coach Dave’s teams won 260 games (.665). From 2000 through 2009 Ponderosa won 207 games over a ten year stretch which included four SVC Conference Championships and two CIF Section final four appearances. Over his 27 year Boys Varsity Coaching career, Coach Dave posted 391 wins, produced 20 college basketball players and was named SVC Coach of the Year four times. At Ponderosa, Coach Dave’s teams were #1 in California in team defense five times and in 2008 Ponderosa was the top defensive team in the Nation among shot clock states. Over Coach Millhollin’s last five seasons (2005-6 through 2009-2010; 136 games) Ponderosa averaged a composite 50% total field goal percentage, 58% two point field goal percentage and 32% three point field goal percentage. Since retiring from High School coaching in 2010, Coach Dave has been actively involved in coaching Jr High level School and AAU teams as well as and running instructional basketball clinics from the primary grades through the College level.

Playing with Purpose on Purpose Part 2 “Advanced Purpose”

By Brian Williams on December 1, 2019

This article was written and submitted by retired High School Coach Dave Millhollin.

I have included more information about his coaching career at the end of the article.

Caoch Millhollin has contributed several insightful articles to the site. You can find links to more of them at the bottom of this post under the “Related Posts” tab.

If you would like to contact Coach Millhollin, email me and I will put you in touch with him.

Playing with Purpose on purpose (Part 2) “Advanced Purpose”

Teaching basketball language and vocabulary

There are three kinds of basketball language; “regular basketball language”, this language includes formal and slang basketball terms and is used by commentators, coaches, players, social media and on the playground. Most players understand this language fairly well by the time you will get them as high school or college players.

The second language is “the language of your opposition”, here your players only really need to know what certain words the opposition might use to describe a strategy or tactic they might use such words as “Bronco” meaning flex, or “23” meaning 2-3 zone, or “fist” pick and roll, etc.

By knowing your oppositions’ vocabularies, your team can intercept verbal cues in order to counter opposing tactics and strategies.

The third language is “your team’s language”; the language of your program. This is the most important language you can teach and most coaches don’t realize how important this one can be. As you teach the elements of your program, based on your Purpose and goals, you can develop a vocabulary and language unique to your team. For example: regarding the concept of “matching up”, we used two different phrases/words to communicate that idea; “divide up” and “meba” (which is short for Amoeba). In this case nobody else we ever played used these words, for our opposition it was a different language, for our guys they understood what those words meant and for some reason, our guys did a better job of “matching up” quickly and effectively using our language.

As your team learns the language, coaches should use that language not just in teaching and communicating your programs stuff but also when discussing the stuff opposing teams run as well; you describe their stuff in your language. For example: if your half-court trap is called “2red” and the team you are playing runs a 1-2-2 half court trap, you would refer to it as “12red” on a scouting report.

Pre-game goals and scouting reports

Before every game our coaching staff prepares scouting reports, these reports contain the following things for our players to understand:

Paragraph describing an overall profile of our opponent
List of opponent offenses and press breaks
List of opponent defenses and presses
Inbounds plays (if significant)
Breakdown of each of their important players
Your offensive keys and goals (what you have to do offensively to win)
Your defensive keys and goals (what you have to do defensively to win)
A list of what offenses you are going to open the game with
A list of what defenses you are going to open the game with
A brief motivational message at the bottom of the page

If possible, we would hand out our pre-game goals and scouting reports the before the game so players had a chance to go over it prior to our game day pre game meeting.

Teaching the philosophy and style of play of your opponents

(player empowerment)

Taking the time to explain your opponents’ style of play and the philosophy behind those styles of play is a very important part of playing with purpose. As you teach each style and philosophy, it is crucial that you also teach the strengths and weaknesses of each style of play with comparisons to your team’s style and philosophy. This process makes it much easier for your team to understand your keys to success against each of your opponents.

Example;

For athletic teams that like to score from defensive pressure into offensive transition and from offensive rebounds; we used to use the phrase; “Take their legs away”. Our players understood that this meant that if we took shots that are difficult for opponents to fast break from and if we played great contain defense; helping on drives allowing only poor quality mid-range shots and blocked out for every defensive rebound; we would have a good chance of winning, (even though our opponent may be much more athletic than us).

A big part of teaching the philosophy and style of play of our opponents, we came up with “Categories”, examples such as:

Athletic teams that like to press, drive, fast break and crash the offensive boards
Methodical, (mostly “suburban teams”) that execute half-court offense well and have good offensive and defensive fundamentals
Teams with one or two dominant scorers
Zone teams
Teams with one or more big men that like to pound it inside
Perimeter oriented teams

Our players would learn the essential keys we must execute in order to be successful against any of the teams on our schedule.

For pre-season games, especially tournaments; we would quickly develop a “categorical profile” of each opponent as we developed our scouting reports, for league and playoffs, we would develop more comprehensive and detailed scouting reports.

At tournaments or if we took out team to scout a pre-season opponent (or by the use of film) we would divide the team into two groups. For bracketed tournaments we would have one group focus on one team and the other group focus on the other team. Each group would be assigned a leader to coordinate the group and the groups would sit separately with their binders out and have scouting report paper to take notes on and for diagram purposes.

At half time they would compare notes and put the teams into categories. Then they would talk about our “keys for success” against those teams.

Single games where we were scouting only one of the teams playing; one group would scout the team’s offense and the other group would scout their defense, then after the game we get pizza and discuss what we observed and come up with our “keys”

We found this process to be quite intimidating and impressive to our opponents; a group of guys dressed in team gear coming into the gym, sitting in an organized manner with binders out evaluating the game in an organized “PURPOSFUL” manner; no headphones or earbuds on, no cell phones out, no goofing around with great chemistry and focus.

Coaches who take the time to comprehensively teach this stuff can create teams that understand their opponents’ philosophies and styles of play better than opponents themselves do.

Prioritizing skills and concept teaching over scouting and film

I’ve just covered quite a bit of information on pre-game scouting preparation and I believe it is very important; it’s a coaching protocol that pre-occupies many coaches and puts a huge emphasis on scouting, film breakdown, scout teams and “scout recognition” execution.

While I believe these things are important and should be addressed; my background as a player and coach has been much more pre-occupied by fundamental skills and concept teaching with an emphasis understanding the various ways the game is played then developing a particular style of play most conducive to success with our teams (this style will differ some depending on our players any given season).

That being said, I believe coaches should spend most of their time teaching their players how to play and how to play against all different kinds of situations and circumstances. Teams, players and coaches should be able to adjust to every circumstance their opponents throw at them and adapt without having to spend countless hours ahead of time breaking down film, going over scouting reports and conducting walk throughs.

This “balanced approach” is the one I took during my coaching career and all my coaching role models and mentors from the time I played to throughout my coaching career had similar priorities.

Stay tuned for Part 3; Communication, Control, Coaching to Win and Credibility (in progress).