Bad Blood 2 Archer Vs Appleton For Free????

Mr Hoppe said:
Mark, I think I hear you saying that Earl's management fees/percentage are cost prohibitive. It's a real shame because Earl is currently experiencing a real resurgance. He's so controversial that he's like a train wreck that everyone just MUST look at! Frankly, I think this is the train you want to be on, at least in the short term... Though Johnny is a really great guy, and a real champion to boot, I think it's a fact that JA v DA is not going to generate the excitement that Earl v almost anyone will. You might see if you can get his manager involved in helping you promote the event and getting sponsors. After all, the more he can put his client to work, the more money he can make. He may have some favors he would call in to get some out of industry sponsors involved. You never know... but one thing is for sure, Earl is HOT right now, and Earl vs Alex P would probably be the next biggest audience draw. Even if you only break even due to Earl's higher fees, you may learn some things and meet some people or sponsors that allow you to advance the PPV concept for your next event...
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I really can't go into detail about it but be assured that if it made sense at all I would do it.
 
Let them watch the first half of the match for free, download and keep second half for $5. Whole match, $6 at halftime or $5 to download from the start. $12 including a T-shirt or DVD? Now people can watch it whenever they want. Some of the free viewers might pay for the second half, especially if its a good match. Word spreads, and this also adds to the total amount of people watching. No sponsor is gonna pay for a 300 person crowd.

1000 viewers X $5 = $5000

At worst, you get the same 300 people at 300 X 5 for $1500. I could be wrong, but I dont think 700 more people is asking alot. I would pay the 5 bucks easily, especially if i can keep the match. But 25 is too steep for me. The free viewers are still valuable because of word of mouth and sponsor presentation. They also might support by buying accessories, or by making a simple $1 donation(banner ad).
 
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Just FYI, after we ran out of the T-Shirts quite quickly in Lincoln I had a number of people ask about buying on the internet. I am working on that as we speak so if anyone would like one please email me as I am going to just have 30 made and I know I already got 10 or 15 sold in Nebraska. Anyway email me with your size and I will start getting them together and contact you for payment.

I will also be holding a contest too for one of the shirts that was the last one we have. Thanks
 
bobroberts said:
Obviously it is not easy. What i was trying to point out is with a major sponsor behind you, it would allow you to sell it to other sponsors. Then PPV wouldn't matter.
There is an audience for pool, tapping into that is the difficult thing.
If Bud will pay millions for a 30 second shot in a football game. I don't know why they couldn't sponsor a pool match.
It would have to be presented with facts and numbers behind it so they can see a profit. Money talks and BS walks.
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Because the stream only gets 1000 people who pay to watch and most of them are already drunk on another type of beer:wink:!
 
Econ 101 - demand curve

As the price of he PPV goes up, the number of interested viewers goes down. If you plot all of the possible prices and their corresponding number of viewers, you have your demand curve. The slope of that line is called the elasticity of demand, and indicates how sensitive your consumers are to a change in product price. Two of the points on that line have been demonstraited recently:
1) price 0, viewers 2,000. This was seen in the SVB vs Strickland TAR match.
2) price $25, viewers approx 250. This my own ball park from other recent streams, but I'm sure Justin could give you accurate data.

If you calculate the slope of the line, then given either a price or a number of viewers, you can calculate the other one, and see where you would be in terms of total revenue. If you get 2,000 viewers for a free stream, and 250 at $25, then if it were a $5 PPV, and you calculate that you might get 1,600 viewers for example, then you would take in $8k, which is more than the $6,250 that you would take in if charging 250 viewers $25 each.

After you plot that line (curve actually) you choose the price that you would like to charge. In certain cases you might want only a few customers paying a very high price (ex: Lamborghini or Bentley), in other cases you might want many more customers, who each pay a very low price (ex: iPhone apps, or iTunes songs.) In the case of producing a video, you have primarily fixed costs, meaning for the most part, it costs you the same to produce a video for one person as it does to produce it for 1,000 people. This scenario enables you to keep the price per customer relatively low and rely on higher customer volume to produce the revenue. In terms of a business though, the goal is to maximize revenue, and if you have plotted your demand curve accurately, THEORTICALLY you can calculate the exact price that will yield your maximum revenue.

I realize that there are other factors in play here, e.g.: popularity of the players, Spring being sort of the end of "pool season" (at least here in the mid-west, variable streamer pricing, and on and on, but this is the Econ 101 portion of the price selection.
 
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nathandumoulin said:
As I mentioned earlier, the math is not even close to accurate.

It takes $5k+ to put together one of these streams. That's to break even. Now 2000 people MAX watch a free stream of a major event. Even the streamer somehow could get 100% of these people to pay $1-$3 (which isn't even close to possible), they'd still end up losing money.

Again....the *math does not work*. It's not as easy as people think. If it were, we wouldn't all be dead broke and pool wouldn't be in the dumps.

As for the other post about "not marketing properly"....where do you propose the streamer gets the necessary funds to advertise? Advertising isn't cheap, and when the streams are already losing money, a few extra thousand dollars doesn't just fall from the sky.
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I know I'm jumping in here late and I still have a few pages to read so this may have already been covered but I really think the reason the math doesn't work is simply because it is a LIVE STREAM. This is a big problem for both the consumer and the provider. I just recently purchased the SVB vs. Earl Match and while I enjoyed it, I didn't get to enjoy ALL OF IT.

I have also been known to purchase a UFC fight once in a while. But I would never purchase one of them if I couldn't also DVR it at the same time. So what I'm saying is - as a consumer I need to be able to watch this at my leisure somehow. I realize there may be some technical hurdles to get over in order to make this happen but someone has to figure this out. Not only for the consumer, BUT more importantly for the provider.

Think about it, you are only able to make money off of the match while it is live. You really need a bigger window of opportunity. So, if you can get 300 people to order the PPV when it is live; plus another 200 the next day pay to watch it while it is still hot; then maybe another 50 or so after just a few days. This would really increase your revenue potential. If the only other option is to wait until a DVD is released, I think it is too late to take advantage of the "buzz" of the match.

Just my thoughts. Take um' or leave um'.
 
JCIN said:
The biggest hole in the market and most often heard complaint I see and hear comes down to time shifting. Most people who are going to pay $25 to watch a match for three days want to see it live. There is however a substantial number as well that want to be able to watch it on demand and that is the hole that needs filled first IMO.

With TAR matches there are several challenges we face.

1. Technical ability. I don't have it. I simply don't know how to create or purchase the capability we want with the resources we have at present. That is being worked on by someone smarter than me as we speak. It will be done at some point.

2. Length of match. Most tournament matches are 2 hours or less. One of our matches is 16-20 hours. This in itself presents some not inconsequential challenges when it comes to handling VOD.

3. Limited resources. TAR up until just recently has had exactly one person doing all the tech work. That person is me and four years ago I didn't know a XLR cable from a garden hose. To do this stuff well is difficult. To do it well without experience and a lot of money is HARD. I learned in photography that somethings you just can't do cheap. Video is ten times worse. Add in the pressure of live production and it gets worse. There is no second take. When you screw up, a piece of gear fails or one setting in one system is wrong its on display for everyone to witness.

I say all that to illustrate that saying "Well XYZ does ABC" is easy to say but hard to put into practice when you don't have a clue how to do it and paying someone isn't an option. I have been extremely lucky to have gotten some guidance from people with much more expertise than I have like Nathan and Cleary both of whom are real pro's at what they do. The live camera work and graphics before and during TAR 20 are a glimpse of whats to come in future productions thanks to their contributions.

I could go on forever talking about why we do things the way we do. Believe me I would be very surprised if anyone has thought more about the PPV/streaming thing than I have over the last four years. One thing I know is I have seen steady improvement and growth all across the industry. This in a terrible down time in the economy. You can chalk that up to one thing. There is a very small but very dedicated group of people who love pool and want to watch the best in the world play it despite the technical glitches and hassles associated with it being produced by small half broke companies with more passion than sense and sometimes ability. Its because of that group that TAR is still around and been able to learn and grow. Its the same for Accu-Stats, Lenny, Mark and everyone else out there trying to do things.

At some point someone is going to get it figured out and perfected. At that point, I believe, it will then be able to move outside the realm of what it is now. My friend used to have a saying about business "The pioneer always takes the arrow. Never be the pioneer." But those of us who do this thing have no choice. So we and everyone who buys in are going to take some arrows. I think it will be worth it when its all said and done.

Sorry for the book but as I said I could talk about this stuff forever.

Edit to add:

The answer to almost every "Why don't they" question and "They should" statement comes down to one or more of the following three things in order of importance:

1. Money
2. Knowledge
3. Time
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I knew I should have read the entire thread before I posted. I figured you had already thought about the VOD thing and after reading this it's obvious you already have. Hmmm. For my next suggestion, I'm going to tell you that you should try putting jelly on your peanut-buttered bread.
 
BasementDweller said:
I know I'm jumping in here late and I still have a few pages to read so this may have already been covered but I really think the reason the math doesn't work is simply because it is a LIVE STREAM. This is a big problem for both the consumer and the provider. I just recently purchased the SVB vs. Earl Match and while I enjoyed it, I didn't get to enjoy ALL OF IT.

I have also been known to purchase a UFC fight once in a while. But I would never purchase one of them if I couldn't also DVR it at the same time. So what I'm saying is - as a consumer I need to be able to watch this at my leisure somehow. I realize there may be some technical hurdles to get over in order to make this happen but someone has to figure this out. Not only for the consumer, BUT more importantly for the provider.

Think about it, you are only able to make money off of the match while it is live. You really need a bigger window of opportunity. So, if you can get 300 people to order the PPV when it is live; plus another 200 the next day pay to watch it while it is still hot; then maybe another 50 or so after just a few days. This would really increase your revenue potential. If the only other option is to wait until a DVD is released, I think it is too late to take advantage of the "buzz" of the match.

Just my thoughts. Take um' or leave um'.
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You are correct. PPV events are "perishable," and have a shelf life like good fruit.
 
Mr Hoppe said:
As the price of he PPV goes up, the number of interested viewers goes down. If you plot all of the possible prices and their corresponding number of viewers, you have your demand curve. The slope of that line is called the elasticity of demand, and indicates how sensitive your consumers are to a change in product price. Two of the points on that line have been demonstraited recently:
1) price 0, viewers 2,000. This was seen in the SVB vs Strickland TAR match.
2) price $25, viewers approx 250. This my own ball park from other recent streams, but I'm sure Justin could give you accurate data.

If you calculate the slope of the line, then given either a price or a number of viewers, you can calculate the other one, and see where you would be in terms of total revenue. If you get 2,000 viewers for a free stream, and 250 at $25, then if it were a $5 PPV, and you calculate that you might get 1,600 viewers for example, then you would take in $8k, which is more than the $6,250 that you would take in if charging 250 viewers $25 each.

After you plot that line (curve actually) you choose the price that you would like to charge. In certain cases you might want only a few customers paying a very high price (ex: Lamborghini or Bentley), in other cases you might want many more customers, who each pay a very low price (ex: iPhone apps, or iTunes songs.) In the case of producing a video, you have primarily fixed costs, meaning for the most part, it costs you the same to produce a video for one person as it does to produce it for 1,000 people. This scenario enables you to keep the price per customer relatively low and rely on higher customer volume to produce the revenue. In terms of a business though, the goal is to maximize revenue, and if you have plotted your demand curve accurately, THEORTICALLY you can calculate the exact price that will yield your maximum revenue.

I realize that there are other factors in play here, e.g.: popularity of the players, Spring being sort of the end of "pool season" (at least here in the mid-west, variable streamer pricing, and on and on, but this is the Econ 101 portion of the price selection.
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You are leaving out the cost of bandwidth. I would much rather have 500 at $25 than than 5000 at $2.50. One of them I get to eat, the other, I have to sell my car to pay the bill.
 
Just got a few emails asking about the price of the shirts. Sorry I knew I left something out. They are $20. Once I get enough orders I will be contacting all people who email me with payment options. My email is cantrillmark@yahoo.com Thanks
 
Poker is so hot it would be nice to get Daniel Negreanu (poker pro and former pool player) or John Hennigan involved to get some cross-over customers. Daniel vs Dippy Dave high-steaks sets would be interesting, or even a scotch-doubles match, with each teaming with a pool pro.

Daniel Negreanu/SVB vs Dippy Dave/Alex P = :thumbup:
 
JCIN said:
You are leaving out the cost of bandwidth. I would much rather have 500 at $25 than than 5000 at $2.50. One of them I get to eat, the other, I have to sell my car to pay the bill.
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That's what I meant by there are other things at work including "variable streamer pricing." In my example I assume that the stream pricing is a fixed cost for the sake of simplicity, but the fact remains that once you have determined your demand curve, you can use that information to analyze other variables including the stream cost tiering to figure out where you want to be on your cost model: low cost/high volume, high cost/low volume, or somewhere in between. The exact price that you choose (and revenue that you will collect) will depend on the details of the stream provider's cost structure.
 
JCIN said:
You are leaving out the cost of bandwidth. I would much rather have 500 at $25 than than 5000 at $2.50. One of them I get to eat, the other, I have to sell my car to pay the bill.
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See hear is a classic example of the things that come into play that can be forgotten about or pushed aside as a minor expense. However, all these things add up.

I do not want anyone to think I am just being negative on things here, I only want to point out what I have been saying and that is these things cost $$ and take some figuring out no matter how easy they may seem from the outside. I am also not negating anyones ideas because we have to have the ideas first and then look at the reasons it won't work. If you get an idea and get all excited about the positives, you can work a few days on how much money each idea can make just to find out that there is this other little thing over here that is associated with the great idea that costs money.

Thanks Justin for chiming in as your words validate some of the issues involved as everyone knows you know what you are talking about more than maybe anyone on here.
 
Mark, my detailed example was meant to point out that:
1) There are quantitative tools that you can use to analyze these scenarios, and 2) that sometimes you can make more money by charging your customer less.

I'll just be quiet now.
 
Mr Hoppe said:
Mark, my detailed example was meant to point out that:
1) There are quantitative tools that you can use to analyze these scenarios, and 2) that sometimes you can make more money by charging your customer less.

I'll just be quiet now.
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Mr H, I was not knocking you or your example. It was a blanket statement not directed at you at at the forum as a whole I know that most everyone on here are pretty intelligent people and I really don't need to say some things I do but I feel I should just point out that this is why I have the problem I have when trying to create something for free that is not being subsidized by a Major corp or investor. I have to create/find all the money.
 
Bigtruck said:
Mark,

Can we get a picture of the shirt?

Thanks,

Ray
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Just sent you a email of the pic. Please can you post it cos I don't know how. Also the front has the Legends and Champions logo on the front. Not that that makes it worth buying just info on what you are getting. Thanks
 
Let me run something by all you guys and gals. Remember this is just a test to see if I am way off base or if this is a good concept. Someone on here gave me the idea so lets see.

If I do pre sales to the next Badf Blood event and offer the following.

1) A signed event T-Shirt signed by both players.
2) a copy of the DVD
3) A signed nick Varner cue (Signed by nick Varner)
4) A Bottle of Archers Scorpion Sting Hot sauce.
5) A Bottle of Darren Appletons Dynamite Hot sauce
6) PPV access for the 2 day event

Cost = $120.00

Does this make for a good package? Please let me know even if the answer is that you think I am smoking crack. Thanks
 
bfdlad said:
Let me run something by all you guys and gals. Remember this is just a test to see if I am way off base or if this is a good concept. Someone on here gave me the idea so lets see.

If I do pre sales to the next Badf Blood event and offer the following.

1) A signed event T-Shirt signed by both players.
2) a copy of the DVD
3) A signed nick Varner cue (Signed by nick Varner)
4) A Bottle of Archers Scorpion Sting Hot sauce.
5) A Bottle of Darren Appletons Dynamite Hot sauce
6) PPV access for the 2 day event

Cost = $120.00

Does this make for a good package? Please let me know even if the answer is that you think I am smoking crack. Thanks
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I hate to break to you Mark. But....I vote you're smoking crack. :(

Most of the people who watch streams want just that. To watch pool. As nice as those items are, they don't care about hot sauce, replay value, or event tshirts.

At $120, you'd be lucky to get a handful of people to pre order, plus then you're back into PPV territory.
 
bfdlad said:
Let me run something by all you guys and gals. Remember this is just a test to see if I am way off base or if this is a good concept. Someone on here gave me the idea so lets see.

If I do pre sales to the next Badf Blood event and offer the following.

1) A signed event T-Shirt signed by both players.
2) a copy of the DVD
3) A signed nick Varner cue (Signed by nick Varner)
4) A Bottle of Archers Scorpion Sting Hot sauce.
5) A Bottle of Darren Appletons Dynamite Hot sauce
6) PPV access for the 2 day event

Cost = $120.00

Does this make for a good package? Please let me know even if the answer is that you think I am smoking crack. Thanks
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Wow, it sure looks like a great value, for what you're getting.

(Might think about having the players sign the Hot Sauce bottles, too, if you're gonna do the whole package/memorabilia thing.)

I dunno how many you would sell, but that's the trick, isn't it? It won't be because the package is over-priced.

Cool idea. Good luck with the whole thing.
 
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