Indiana High Schools Sell Football Pay-Per-View For Revenue

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Some Indiana high school athletic programs are turning to pay-per-view broadcasts of their football games and other fundraising efforts to help make up revenue they’ve lost due to a drop in fan attendance amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Athletic directors have had to be resourceful while trying to adhere to health department guidelines and still provide a way for fans to view their athletic contests. Northern Indiana’s Mishawaka High School, for example, is charging fans $9.99 to view broadcasts of its football games, with the school receiving 60 percent of the revenue from each purchase. The broadcasts, run by Mishawaka students and faculty, had been free to watch for the past three years.

“The opportunity to make revenue while still using the video broadcasts as a teaching tool is what we decided to do,” Dean Huppert, director of athletics for Mishawaka told the South Bend Tribune via email. “When our students graduate, they will have experience in marketing, sales and the technical side of the broadcast. We have some students who have thrived in this program and will have tools they never could have dreamed of had they not signed up for this program.”

The football broadcasts are produced by the school’s Mishawaka Network and streamed on the IHSAA Champions Network.

Concord High School and LaPorte High School are among the several dozen schools statewide that have partnered with the IHSAA Champions Network to create pay-per-view broadcasts of their home games.