How Can Someone Who Just Started Texting This Year Monetize A Podcast?
Tony Kornheiser is famous for many things. He is one half of ESPN’s Pardon the
Interruption, announced games as a Monday Night Football commentator, and was a longtime
Sports and Style columnist for The Washington Post. However, Kornheiser’s most loyal fans may
come from his daily radio show that has been broadcasted for years in the Washington D.C.
metropolitan area. These fans are so loyal that they scream out inside jokes from the show
during professional golf tournaments, including this year’s U.S. Open Championship.
Today is the final day of Kornheiser’s 24-year career on sports talk radio, but he is not
leaving his fans behind. Instead the same person who just started texting this year is going to a
podcast only version of his show. Why, would Kornheiser give up something he loves so much.
He says his primary motivation for the change is to figure out “How close can we get to my
house? Can I get next door? That’s pretty much it.” Kornheiser's podcasts of his radio show have
attracted listeners from all over the world. In fact, it is likely that many fans of the Tony
Kornheiser radio show have never actually listened to the radio show itself.
Kornheiser is not the first famous sportswriter to leave the confines of traditional media
to launch his own podcast. In fact, Bill Simmons departure from ESPN became the catalyst for
him to create his own podcast network. The challenge for Kornheiser, Simmons, and others that
are launching their own podcasts is how can they most effectively monetize the fan base using
advertising. Kornheiser’s approach is to make comedic appeals on his radio shows asking if his
current sponsors will come with him to the podcast.
However, not everyone will have the comedic wit of Kornheiser or the established
podcast track record of Simmons. In addition, podcasts are not the only new form of media that
sports rights holders are looking to monetize. Live game streaming, Snapchat feeds, eSports,
and virtual reality are just some examples of new advertising inventory available to corporate
sponsors in the sports industry. How do you communicate the value you are providing for
advertisers on platforms with which they have little or no familiarity?
Block Six Analytics (B6A) valuation modeling and analytics can help anyone from a “bald,
orange” man who just started texting this year to the most sophisticated sports entities
monetize this content being created in new channels. The key is using a framework that
communicates how advertising on a new platform reaches the right people at the right time
with the right message. What does “right” mean in this context? Right means that an
advertising opportunity will enhance the probability of sponsors generating more revenue and
meeting their marketing objectives.
B6A’s Partnership Scoreboard TM cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) platform
enables rights holders to communicate to partners the value they are receiving using our 3-2- 1
valuation model. What does all that mean? We have developed a technology that enables
rights holders and advertisers to have the ability to see the opportunities that are available and
communicate the value of those opportunities in real-time. We look at three categories
(initiatives, demographics, and channels), across two goals (return on investment (ROI) and
return on objectives (ROO)), and get one single cross-channel valuation. Corporate partners can
also use the Partnership Scoreboard to evaluate specific opportunities for their specific
businesses.
We have already seen our approach work for clients including the Philadelphia 76ers,
Comcast SportsNet Chicago, and Minnesota United. These properties combined have generated
over $300k in new revenue by using B6A’s service offerings. New advertising channels can
require new ways of thinking when it comes to selling and valuing sponsorship inventory, and
that is what B6A provides to our clients. Even someone as old-school as Kornheiser
believes, “You’ve got to avail yourself to all the technology and all the time.” B6A can help ensure that
availing yourself to all the technology can help you generate more revenue (almost) all of the
time.