Updating Linfield Athletics Website - Paper
Updating Linfield Athletics Website
By Kristen Buse
Abstract
There seems to be no cap on fans’ passion for college sports, and athletic departments are enhancing the interactive viewing experience on their Websites accordingly. (C. Braff, December 10, 2009)
Linfield Athletics is a NCAA Division III school that plays in the Northwest Conference. Their athletics website is the only website in their conference that does not include live stats for their basketball games. Although their basketball program has been to the playoffs for the past two years and Linfield’s fan base is significant the program would benefit from the addition of live stats and live video feeds of their home games. Currently two other schools in the conference utilize both live stats and live video feeds of their home basketball games. Adding this content to the website would help enable Linfield supporters to view the games online which will create a stream of revenue income for the school and help foster a stronger recruiting base for the basketball program in years to come.
Website Basics
The recruiting process is about engaging recruits and getting across the university’s and coach’s message, goals and -ultimately- the brand. … One major facet of this engagement that needs to be treated very seriously is the athletic website. Often times this is one of the first and most powerful medium’s that can get across your schools message. (Getting your Athletic Website Ready for Prime, Dec. 22, 2009, paragraph 1)
When looking into the effectiveness of the Linfield Athletics website a glaring discrepancy occurs between the effectiveness of its website and the effectiveness of other Northwest Conference school sites. George Fox College and Whitworth College were used for this comparison due to the comparable costs that each athletic department spends on their basketball programs (which will be discussed in detail later in this proposal) and the fact that both schools currently utilize both live stats and live video feed of their home games. Currently George Fox’s overall website value is estimated at $245,901.96 according to the leading website evaluator site, Cubestat.com (data based on statistics generated on March 2, 2010). Whitworth’s website value is at $257,649.12 and Linfield’s overall website value is estimated at only $14,210.91 (Cubestat.com, March, 2, 2010). Daily Page views for Linfield’s main site is approximately 6,489 while George Fox’s page views are at approximately 112,284 and Whitworth’s page views are at approximately 117,648 per day. According to Alexa.com, a web traffic statistic reviewer, approximately 0.84% of Linfield traffic searches for athletics. This amount would equate to approximately 56 persons per day in traffic. Although figures were not available for searches relating to George Fox Athletics, Whitworth Athletics comprised 1.71% of all searches completed on the site which would equate to approximately 2,011 persons per day searching for their athletics site. While Cubestat.com did reveal a large discrepancy in numbers for the Linfield website in regards to website traffic and website worth it is important to note that the website itself is not showing meta information which includes meta tags, a description or a title for the page which would help move Linfield college pickup more web traffic and increase its website worth. Another way to increase its traffic and website worth it to add more components that could drive traffic to the site (such as live stats and live video feed of athletic events) and will also make it more recruit friendly.
Basketball Budgeting
According to the institutional data for the 2008-2009 athletic year found thru the Office of Post Secondary Education Linfield has the least amount of operating expenses per participant in basketball than any other Northwest conference team at $1,837 per person. One of the main reasons for this low number is that Linfield is also the only school to have a JV basketball team at the school in the conference which brings the total number of participants to 27 while other conference schools average 15 basketball participants. Taking this into consideration Linfield is third to the lowest in the conference in overall operating expenses for the basketball program at $49,593 for the year of 2008-2009. The lowest overall operating expenses per program are Willamette University at $38,641 for the year. According to the Linfield report filed with the office of Post Secondary Education the team men’s basketball costs for the 2008-2009 athletic years were listed at $101,700. The team men’s basketball revenue was listed at $119,975 for this same time period. Therefore for the 2008-2009 athletics year men’s basketball generated an $18,275 profit for the college. This was the highest profits generated by all men’s basketball teams in the Northwest conference with average profits for other teams are listed at $6200 for the 2008-2009 athletics year. This amount of profits create an opportunity to upgrade essential portions of the website to include features such as live stats and live video feed that the Linfield athletics website has been lacking.
Upgrading Information
Currently George Fox College utilizes PrestoSports for their live stats and live video feeds. After reviewing numerous carriers of this type of service I concluded that PrestoSports was the most cost effective and least intrusive of all other options that were evaluated. According to Ted Bardach, sales representative at PrestoSports, their software is utilized by many NCAA Division lll schools. The basic equipment needed to utilize the live video and live stat programs are a laptop with access to the internet, a video feed camcorder, and the most updated version of Stat Crew, the largest distributor of statistics keeping software at the college level. Ted at PrestoSports recommended purchasing a medium quality camcorder due to the better quality in picture available for the cost. The live stat option thru PrestoSports is based on a per sport per season cost to cover all games. This was a cost of a flat $250.00 per season per sport. For the live video feed portion of their services they offer two choices. One choice is to offer live viewing for free to the public via website. The second option is to charge for viewing games in live stream. Recommended pricing from PrestoSports is as follows; $6.95 per single game, $45.95 for the complete basketball season or $29.95 per season for the football or an annual pass for all sports available at $75.00 - $100.00. Under this option the cost per game is zero and instead the revenue is split 50/50 between the college and PrestoSports. If the revenue is under an average of $75 per event a flat fee of $25.00 per event is assessed and the remaining monies are split 50/50 with the school. The free option for live video feed has a cost of $75.00 per event. There is no minimum amount of events that are required to be scheduled per year nor is there a setup fee to commence services. Each live video feed scenario has been included in the table of costs found at diagram 1A. Set up costs are also included in table 1B. The set up costs assume that there is currently no available laptop for use nor is there a compatible digital video camcorder for use at Linfield for the sporting events therefore the cost to purchase these items new has been included. Set up costs also assume that Linfield currently does not use Stat Crew statistics software so a new user license and software package would need to be purchased as opposed to solely an upgrade to the service (the difference of $235.00 between the two). The equipment needed to utilize live stats and live video feed can easily be handled by a student in the technology, communications, or sports program. This could be offered as a sports assistant internship as well. Therefore the cost to administer the use of these items would be zero.
Conclusion
Linfield athletics would greatly benefit from the addition of live stats and live video feed on their athletics website. Not only would this create another stream of revenue for the college it would also help to increase Linfield’s sports presence in the eyes of the potential sport recruit and foster relations with Linfield Alumni. Seeing a basketball game is easier to connect with players and teams than listening to the same plays online. With the affordability of such options and the profits that the men’s basketball team is currently producing there is a surefire economical way to bring the Linfield athletics website into the 21st century.
Resources
Braff, Carolyn (2009, December 10) IMG IAF: Quality Must Increase for Online Media to Drive Revenue, retrieved from http://sportsvideo.org/main/blog/2009/12/10/img-iaf-quality-must-increase-for-online-media-to-drive-revenue
United States Department of Education. Office of Post Secondary Education (data file) retrieved from http://www.ope.ed.gov/athletics/GetOneInstitutionData.aspx
Cube Stat. (data file) retrieved from http://www.cubestat.com
Alexa Internet Incorporated. (data file) retrieved from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo
The Rush. (2009, December 22) Getting your Athletic Website Ready for Prime Time. Retrieved from http://blog.frontrush.com/2009/12/22/getting-your-athletic-website-ready-for-prime-time/
PrestoSports. (2002 – 2010) retrieved from http://www.prestosports.com/landing/index
George Fox University. George Fox Bruin Athletics (data file) retrieved from http://www.prestosports.com/landing/index
Linfield College. Linfield Athletics (data file) retrieved from
http://www.linfield.edu/sports/stats/mbkb/teamstat.htm
Stat Crew. Stat Crew Software. Retrieved from http://www.statcrew.com/
Figure 1A
Live Video Feed costs
Free to public option
$75.00/ GAME 8 Games/Season Cost per Season: $600.00
Cost to public option
Breakeven point (ie no $25.00 fee/event and revenue above $600.00 per season to PrestoSports)
$6.95/game 22 subscribers/game Revenue per game: $152.90
Profit per game to School: $76.45 Profit/Season: $611.60
$45.95/season 27 subscribers/season Revenue per season: 1240.65
Profit/Season: $620.32
Figure 1B
Startup Costs
Laptop Computer - HP - Pavilion Laptop with Intel® Core™ i7 Processor - Black $1049.99
Digital Video Camcorder - Sony - High-Definition DVD Camcorder with 120GB Hard Disk Drive and 2.7" LCD Monitor - Black $699.99
Stat Crew Software $400.00
Total Start Up Costs $2149.98
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