Advertising Question...

[DCbullets14]

As some of you may know I have been working pretty heavily on starting a new AIHL team. One of the issues that all teams seem to face is how to raise the money necessary to finanace the teams.

While watching the AIHL finals I noticed that there were very few corporate advertisements. Was this intentional or was it simply the way things worked out? It seems to me that a ton of money could be raised by simply selling off some broadcast time.


Even if we only do 6-7 commercials during the broadcast it could still raise an enormous amount of money for the league.

Some ideas I had....

• Product reviews.... get some clips of new products and show a little commerical about that new products. During this time many new companies are using prototypes of their newest products showing them on ESPN could build a ton of hype. My understanding is that Revision was willing to do this for MLRH http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izEsyyDm9nM
  
• Interview Players about what products they are using. This would be a huge incentive for companies to dish out some free equipment (wheel companies, sticks, etc.)
  
• Try and get online distributers like inlinewarehouse, hockeymonkey, etc. to put a commerical together...

I am not trying to bash the league for not doing these things I am simply trying to make a suggestion and get feedback from other people. AIHL is a great league and I am excited about being potentially being involved as a team owner and as a player this upcoming year.

[Mlrhnorthfan]

best advice i can give is to become an not-for-profit organization. You can use your affiliation with AAU to become one.

it costs like 500 bucks for a year and you get your own federal tax Id.

Then any money you get from sponsors is TAX DEDUCTABLE by them becuase it is considered a charitable donation.

Companies are more likley to donate tax free to help their bottom line than to just give money.