12:26:46pm, Thursday, May 02, 2024
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My question to the NTPA.
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Moderator Registered: 03/25/2008 Posts: 1,446 |
I realize that we/me have discussed the " exclusive contract" that the NTPA signed recently and the questions surrounding that. In fairness to Chase and Jason they presented their proposal to the NTPA. In any business transactions it's the responsibility of the party signing the contract to fully understand what they agreeing to.
My question is; did the powers in the NTPA office really sit down and read this completely? Did they even think about how this would impact other social media partners? Did they call the promoters of their events and discuss the live streaming ramifications with them? Did tell the promoters what the cost would be? That a fan could stay home and get their show for $9.99. Or did they read the first one or two sentences and simply sign it? How does the NTPA decide on matters such as these? They were certain that the betting idea was the next greatest thing, the pullers,promoters, organizations were all going to be well compensated, not sure how that's worked out so far.To many times they write rules and then before the season starts they have rescinded about half of them. I realize that my opinion sounds harsh, well in fact I like the staff in the NTPA office. And in fairness they do a lot of great things, safety issues they are the standard bearers, in professionalism they do a great job, show quality they are first rate, unfortunately they fall short in some place's. Dick Morgan www.PULLOFF.com Independent Pulling News Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2024 12:38AM by Dick Morgan. |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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Posts: 65 |
I'll stay away from the social media part of this deal because it's early and things seem pretty blurry on what they're actually gonna enforce social media wise. However....
Dick, my guy....open your eyes. It is only a good thing to help bring fans in. In these days of inflation are we really gonna complain about something being cheaper? C'mon man are you really ever satisfied? Let's do some quick math. Flo racing when doing a yearly subscription is $13.25 a month so you could get a good amount of PPL sessions for that. NTPATV yearly subscription was $350 and if you divide that by individual sessions, it's about $12 per session. Why weren't you outside yelling at a cloud before? People who wanna go to pulls are gonna go. It's not something that livestreaming can replace. A lot like drag racing (which also you can get live for cheap) you can't feel the power or hear the real noise that makes it special. I wouldn't do it personally but to solve the possibility of people within close proximity choosing to watch online, just black out every IP address within a certain mile radius. That wouldn't be new to pulling live streams. Pulling in person is still one of the cheapest motorsports to go watch. Even if they don't do a blackout it's still more eyeballs on the sport. More eyeballs=more advertising=more money. Where that money goes is up to them. Hopefully to the right place. Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2024 03:57AM by lil' 1456. |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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Moderator Registered: 03/25/2008 Posts: 1,446 |
Thanks for your response, all your points are worth considering. |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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Promoter
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If I werr a promoter I would have a bumch of questions and the first one is why the livw stream price is less than todays ticket prices. if its a GN pull it draws people from many different states. One guy buys the 9.99 ticket and his 3 buddies that woulda rode with him to the pull bring over their ow.n beer to watch at home thats not gaining the promoter anything. yeah hes getting a cut of the 9.99 per session but lost at least 70.00 per session in ticket sales at 20 a ticket with those four fans in 1seesion now sittin home. Thats not counting beer food shirt sales hotels and fuel they would spend in that town. So second question is how hard are they gonna promote my event to compensate for those losses and help convince the local sponsors to keep my pull going from year to year when they could be taking money out of their pockets too. Are they gonna promote coming to a pull in person as hard as the liveatream is marketed. Nothing wrong with making money if you can but dont make it hard on the people who provide the product your broadcasting you may end up running them out of the pulling busines |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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You're not factoring in the betting. It's all about getting access so they can make the real money on the betting. |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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Mn fan
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$10 per session to live stream seems like a fair price. Charging the same as gate admission is way to high. You could compare it to going to a football game. Why do people pay hundreds of dollars to go to a game when they could watch the game on TV for free. Watching something on TV is nothing like experiencing an event in person, even when getting screwed at the concession stands. |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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roadkill
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Football is only free if you're in the local market and have an antenna and want to watch local teams.... Heaven forbid if you're in NE Ohio..... I'm not gonna post what I post for internet/tv/subscriptions but my Flo Racing subscription is definitely worth it...
Been to 3 pulls so far this year in person. If I'm gonna support it, it will be in person... |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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OG
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Streaming is probably one of the greatest things to happen to pulling. Fans from all over can watch the sport live when it's not in their area. Very few who would otherwise go, would stay home because of streaming. The price seems appropriate. My question is, what percentage of the fee goes to the promoter? Most? The Richardson's get content to promote their business and sell advertising and the promoter gets access to a stream of revenue otherwise unavailable to them... |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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Moderator Registered: 03/25/2008 Posts: 1,446 |
How does live streaming bring more fans to the event? Dick Morgan www.PULLOFF.com Independent Pulling News |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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Registered: 03/27/2008 Posts: 1,149 |
Hi Dick,
as a live streamer myself over in Europe, I had deeply investigated exactly this question and I of course work with a lot of promoters on all levels. There were some nice videos online from a promoters association, teaching their promoters how live streams actually benefit the promoters. The obvious "the guys who can't make it can still watch" is actually only a fraction of what is happening. The big point is (and they had the numbers to show it - and being part of a pull promoting team for more than 15 years, I can confirm): Your usual tractor pull's crowd is usually about 80% local and 20% true fans (at best). These 80%ers on average come to your pull every three years (this is what I can confirm from the data we have out of the pre-sales of tickets at our event). So this one association then started live streaming and then compared their ticket data with the live stream data and figured out: People who used to only come see an event every two to three years, once having booked into the live streaming all of a sudden bought tickets for three events A YEAR on average and started to visit other races in the region. They turned from a random visitor into a fan. So your target audience with a live stream are NOT the regulars, but those, who will consider going to a pull every once in a while - and keep them engaged by - making them aware of the fact, this is not a traveling circus but an actual points championship (how often have I been asked after the tractor had a crash, whether we will be able to come back next year and then look into surprised faces, when telling them, that we're hopefully back on track next week. "What? There are more events like this?") - giving them all the information and possibilities they need to be able to actually understand and follow the SERIES. Live Streams are not the only thing that needs to be done there, but are a vital part of it. Then there is another aspect: Our bigger pulls do have big LED screens on site, where they show ads on. To actually make the people on site watch the ads, they show replays and different angles of a run - and have a full camera crew on site for just that. This has turned into a basically money printing solution for a lot of promoters here. Bringing that "screen production" live is a matter of a commentator, Starlink and an encoder (add 1000 $) I have this one promoter, who's pull about 5 - 6 years ago was nothing too special and didn't have a crowd worth mentioning. He then invested into Live Streams, that are packed with ads of his sponsors and actually blows them out into the world on any channel possible. The regional newspaper, several YT channels,... For the last two - three years, he doesn't know where to put the people anymore and every Pulling Fan in Europe knows about this event (Knutwill). Another thing that happened to me personally: We put a live stream of an event on YT for free for the first time and witnessed something interesting: We of course had our regular channel followers tuning in - and all of a sudden the viewing numbers kind of exploded to 28,000 viewers. Youtube runs ads on the streams and if they figure, the folks watching don't really switch off (which your hardcore fans don't), it PUSHES the stream onto people they think could like this. So there were people on YT, getting a tractor pull pushed onto them, which YT preselected as "potentially interested in Tractor Pulling" - and over 20k tuned in and followed it. There you have 20k new people watching your Live Stream: Your sponsors, your series dates, your commentators, ... I have been wondering why so many racing series here in Europe are free on YT (Nürburgring kinda has it's own channel, top level drag racing is free to watch on YT, heck - even most Dutch pulls were on there last year). This is why. You want the "potentially interested in Tractor Pulling" folks on YT see a Pulling Live stream or rather watch one of the many other motorsports they can watch there every weekend? Which sport is going to make new "fans"? Floating Finish - the German Tractor Pulling Web Show and EU Live Streams: [www.youtube.com] Edited 9 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2024 05:40AM by Sascha. |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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Moderator Registered: 03/25/2008 Posts: 1,446 |
Sascha; Thank you for that great information, I certainly hope that those same results happen in the US. One question, how long after you began live streaming did you start to see an increase in attendance at your events? Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2024 05:52AM by Dick Morgan. |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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Registered: 03/27/2008 Posts: 1,149 |
I want to add a few things:
[www.youtube.com] These are the streams we put online last year and yesterday. The low numbers on Italy are mostly because we promote those on their own YT channel and some of the bigger streams have been taken down a day after because of copyright (music) issues. It is ABSOLUTELY crucial to have your own commentary on the stream. You can have only one camera - but you need good commentary catered to the audience "out there". Not the guy on the mic on site. He tries and has to cheer up the crowd - a totally different thing that doesn't work for the people on the couch. Best with two guys: One who knows the sport inside out and one who is not soooo familiar with it. We had the best luck with a fan who is pretty funny to listen to, who sits next to an expert and those two having a conversation. What that combination discusses, is what the people out on the screens want to hear. You need "content" on your YT channel, for those who watch, besides the stream. It makes NO sense putting a stream on a random channel - you need one dedicated to "new fans" with content for "new fans" and a solid following ( to actually get the initial numbers when starting a new stream). I've watched the "no practice" podcast last week and for me as a guy who's in the sport for over 30 years it was GREAT! For somebody who has just stumbled over a live stream on YT and now wants to know more - he has questions that we as pullers don't even think about. That's what we do with our "Floating Finish" podcast / web show: Jannis is totally coming from the fan's perspective and is really into the points series and how the next event is where people need to go to because of.... well - the things of interest for the fans. Me - I just sit there and explain a lot of "how, why, history, ..." and would never even get the idea, that what he is telling to the people would be of any interest. But I am on the wrong side of the fence. I worry more about track conditions than grand stand comfort. So - have in mind who you are doing this for - and put one of those in front of the mic, too. Floating Finish - the German Tractor Pulling Web Show and EU Live Streams: [www.youtube.com] Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/2024 12:05AM by Sascha. |
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Re: My question to the NTPA.
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Registered: 03/27/2008 Posts: 1,149 |
"One question, how long after you began live streaming did you start to see an increase in attendance at your events?"
Hard to say because I only do live streams, that I consider "worth watching" on YT since may of last year. Before I only put them on another platform, that I share with other streamers. That doesn't have much effect on getting "new fans". What it does, since we have Pulls from the US, EU and Brazil there, is bring in a few people to watch pulls from far away. I had one event yesterday, which I also streamed last year, were the attendance was quite up from last year - but I partly blame that on the huge success the "best of video" of last years event we put together from the coverage we had recored during the stream on YT and the fact we also mentioned it on our web show last week. However - the promoter yesterday night offered me more money and wants me back next year. It's a small stock tractor pull and I usually do it, to test my new gear in real live and train my crew, so we are ready when the serious stuff starts. Next town promoter came by and wants me to cover their event next year, too. Then I currently have two promoters, who don't want any free live streams anymore, because, NO KIDDING: "Our place is too packed - we will run into infrastructure issues soon, if we put this on YT for free. That's too much advertising" Their words - not mine! So for one we're now doing it in pay per view and the other will not have a stream (and it's my parents 50th wedding anniversary that day anyways). Floating Finish - the German Tractor Pulling Web Show and EU Live Streams: [www.youtube.com] Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2024 06:40AM by Sascha. |
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Good Stuff.
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plb
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Great info as always Sascha!! I watch a lot of pulling from Europe on You Tube. Just live streamed the NFMS in Feb and that was great!!! Keep up the great work and maybe I will you see this summer!! Perry |
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