29A – Venture Concept No. 2

1) Football is a sport that is loved by many Americans.  People take pride in their hometown team and cheer them on to Super Bowl victories.  For the players, coaches, and owners, their whole life and career is based on their team’s success on the field.  However, it can be difficult to win based on talent when the referees miss calls or make incorrect calls.  The job of a referee is to create an equal playing field for both teams.  However, referees can make mistakes that can cost teams a shot at a championship, which can cost players and coaches their jobs.  The referees are employees of the NFL and do not represent the teams.  What I have proposed, is a third-party refereeing service that represents the players and coaches when throughout the game.  The big event that gave me the idea for this service was the NFC championship this year.  A missed pass interference call ruined the Saints’ chance at a comeback against the Rams late in the game.  If the Saints had been granted the correct call, there is a high chance that they would have scored.  After the game, the NFL admitted that it was a blatant missed call that actually broke two different rules of the game.  This is a huge opportunity as there is a lot of money in the NFL and football is a game loved across America.  This opportunity will be around as long as the game of football is, which I think will be a long time.  The need is not currently being satisfied, as the referees are not representing the players and coaches.

The service that I will be selling is a third party refereeing service that will be paid for by the teams that are playing.  Each team will have a direct contact to a representative in a booth, and each representative will have direct contact to the on-field referees.  Coaches will be able to tell the representative what calls they are confused or unsure of, and the representative will work to confirm or deny the call.  The representative will have access to everything the referees do, meaning they will have high quality instant replay.  The representatives will be able to discuss calls with referees if they feel a call was incorrect or missed.  Teams will pay for the service by the season, and then each team will pay per playoff game.  Playoff games will be equipped with more staff and technology and therefore will cost more than regular season games.  There will be minimal costs to this business as there is not a product that needs to be created so there are no manufacturing or distribution costs.  Marketing costs will be minimal as well because once the teams have the product, there is not many more customers to sell it to.  I would price the service at around fifty thousand dollars per team per game.  That puts the revenue at a little over twenty five million dollars per regular season.  Teams will pay one hundred thousand dollars per playoff game.  This would make our service very profitable.

Since the only other alternative to officiate games are the actual referees, it will not be hard to get teams and coaches to buy into this service.  There are no other competitors selling a service such as this so our service will be successful once implemented.  There is not really a packaging or distribution strategy as the teams will be approached by representatives of the service in order to purchase it.  The representatives will meet with the teams throughout the week before games as they see fit, and will be in attendance of every game.  I would develop a business that would look into the different aspects of officiating a game.  There will be people dedicated to working with the teams, people dedicated to developing technology to get better insight into the plays that are developing on the field, and people dedicated to working with the NFL to better their referees and work with our service.  The business will be made up of at least two hundred people, as there will be five representatives per each of the thirty two teams.

What my “unfair advantage” is in this case is the fact that once the service is bought by them teams and they are comfortable putting the calls of the game into my service’s hands, there is a very small chance that they will switch to another company.  We will have experts in football as well as quality technology that will make it difficult for teams to want to switch to a new company.  The next opportunity that I would want to tackle is diversifying the service to officiate other levels of football, and even other sports.  Missed or incorrect calls happen in every sport at every level so once the service gains popularity we may look to expand our reach.  Where I want to be in the next five years with this product is having a serious service that is fully equipped with technology and experts in order to approach NFL teams and have them buy our product.  If we can have the service perfected by the time we pitch this idea to the NFL, then we should have no problem persuading them to utilize it throughout their season.

2) I did not receive any feedback on the "Whats Next" assignment or the first "Venture Concept"

3) I added some more detail on what the service would entail, and how I could improve upon it in the future.