Genius Hour Blog 2:
12 days later I would like to report significant process. The
Forbes article was extremely helpful and helped solidify what my requirements
will be for the progress. I have completed many of the more rudimentary
elements and the business plan has truly helped me develop my idea
further. Including the Company Overview,
Market Size and Competitive advantages, so I’ll spend this blog post detailing
the specific parts.
Company Overview + Executive
Summary
The purpose of the
company overview is to provide a brief history of the company. In this section.
In this section I described. This was to iron out the very basics of my project
and provide the framework. An important piece of advice I found was to think of
your executive summary as an “elevator pitch”. Where it’s as if you were in an
elevator with someone and only had a limited amount of time to explain the
concept of your business, what would you tell them? Some of the primary points
that I had went over were:
- Athletes would not be placed under restrictions the NCAA currently holds, such as limited practice time and the inability to profit off of their own name
- Initial structure would be six teams, with a total of ten games and playoffs consisting of four teams
- It would occur during the spring and summer so as not to directly compete with more established leagues for viewership
- It would be hosted in cities with larger markets that don’t already include an NFL team
Market Size: The market size took a lot of research to
compile. As there isn’t one league that closely resembles the one I am planning
for. To anticipate the demographics of my market, the NFL has the most accurate
demographics available to the public, and a very large sample size. The
viewership of the NFL was insane, as expected, 200 million people used some or all of those 287 million
TVs to watch football
This was a break down of the NFL’s current demographics, per
Nielsen tracking:
Some of my takeaways here were:
- More males than females
- Surprising amount of computer use
- I was also surprised by the lack of viewership in the south, which could be because they follow college football more
- Maybe this league could more west-centered, as that seems to be where viewership is lowest
I also compiled research on TV deals of established
organizations with similarities. The Canadian Football League (CFL) has a deal worth approximately 150 million
dollars over 5 years. The Big East basketball conference has a deal with fox
sports 1 of 500 million over 12 years. The ACC ESPN deal is worth approximately
155 million annually for 5 years. However, these numbers are significantly
greater than the league I am proposed, considering the structure of our league
consists of significantly less games. I will be doing estimates and projections
over the next two weeks.
Competitive
advantages:
The competitive advantages are what will set this league apart
from the NFL, CFL and NCAA. The advantages offered in our league would ever to
be particularly enticing to lure players away from the already established
NCAA. The most obvious advantage would be that the players would not have to be
subjected to the strict rules of the NCAA and that they would receive a salary
and be able to profit off of their league. We could also offer an online
program for players so they wouldn’t be completely giving up their education,
however we expect the majority of players in this league to have NFL futures.
This league could offer be on the forefront of safety, as most of the players
in the league will just be a few years removed from high school and will still
have developing bodies.
These products are all highly acclaimed for their safety and
could be instituted throughout the league:
And the ten game schedule isn’t as rigorous and therefore
will put more emphasis on practice and developing skills and will have players
at less of a risk for injury.
The league could also offering interesting rule changes to
keep fans interested. Such
as field goals <20 yards are 2 points and >45 yards are 4 points.
Hopefully the NFL could see changes implemented in these leagues and then form
a relationship through that, but no changes would be extremely drastic or
permanent.
Until Next Time:
After
completing the rudimentary descriptions and ironing out the details, the next
step will be the finances. This will involve a better understanding of finances
and a significant amount of research. This section is described as the
marketing plan and will include the products and services to be offered, the
pricing, and the promotion and distribution plan.
