HSSR Forced To Raise Sponsor Ad Rates For First Time In 21 Years Starting August 1st

Billy Baker • June 20, 2024

HSSR Forced To Raise Sponsor Ad Rates For First Time In 21 Years Starting August 1st


Moncks Corner — It has been 21 years since “The High School Sports Report” has had a price increase on our sponsor ads, school coverage support, and even on a yearly subscription to the only statewide publication in South Carolina covering high school sports on a full-time basis.


At some point, in these inflationary times we are living in, reality sets in. So, on August, 1st the HSSR will be forced to adjust sponsor ad rates, subscription rates, and year- round coverage cost for athletic programs we are now covering on a year-round basis, and for any new schools who wish to join our network that has provided statewide coverage since our founding in December, 1986.  


The HSSR is still crunching the numbers as to what the increase costs will be but a 20 per cent increase is likely what will happen. Our last price increase happened in 2003. In that year a postage stamp was 37 cents and a gallon of gas averaged $1.59 per gallon. A postage stamp today is 68 cents each. A gallon of gas in South Carolina ranges around $3.38 a gallon.


No kidding, you go though a lot of gas driving between 35,000 and 40,000 miles a year across South Carolina covering high school athletic events. We also have several other writers we reimburse gas expenses too. Thank goodness we now use more e mailing of our team information forms to the 265 schools across the state, who have varsity athletic teams, but not too long ago our postage budget alone was $6,000 a year!


Let’s talk about the value in what we do promote your favorite high school athletic program. I will use a real person in our example. Dr. Phil Wallace is the team doctor of the Dillon High football team. I met him on the sidelines of Dillon football in 1987. He has been sponsoring a full business card ad on the Dillon page of this publication for 37 straight years! Thank you, Dr. Wallace! (Good luck to your cherished alma mater Miami Hurricanes also.


His cost for that ad in 1987 was $500 per year. At that time, we didn’t have a website (hssr.com). By 2003, we increased a full card ad to $600 a year. We started our web site around the same time. All school sponsor ads, benefiting the statewide coverage of a certain school appear in our publication adjacent to the school’s coverage. This sponsor ad also appears on the school page provided all sponsored schools at hssr.com for no extra charge! We average close to 1 million home page hits at hssr.com per year and the website is also totally free!


We also upload the entire contents of our monthly issue to our web site and Dr. Wallace’s ad, and the coverage of his beloved Wildcats, is available on the world wide web to anyone in the world for free! So, let’s review this total market coverage strategy that could also benefit your school. For one price of $600, that has not gone up since 2003, Dr. Wallace’s sponsorship is recognized in the publication with 50,000 annual copies per year, with his sponsor ad duplicated at hssr.com on a web site that averages nearly one million home page hits a year, plus his sponsor ad helps provide Dillon with a free click on “School page” found in the mast head of the web site hssr.com.


Is this a deal or what? It will be still be a deal after a slight increase on August, 1 also!

Some marketing experts would likely want to have three charges in this situation. They could charge for the yearly print ad, have an additional charge for the ad duplicated on the school page found at hssr.com, and a third charge for the sponsors ad appearing in the publication that is uploaded to the web site for free downloading! How much extra should the $600 full card ad cost be starting on August, 1st.


Please review the aforementioned in your head one more time. When we say that the HSSR is a not-for-profit venture we mean it and we can prove it! However, if we want to stay in business a price increase is justified.


Until August, 1st our year-round coverage packages to cover every varsity sport at your school for the entire 2024-25 school year   is as follows: 1/3-page coverage requires a $2,500 sponsorship that covers the publication, web site, and school page. A ½ page coverage requires a $3,500 sponsorship and a full- page coverage requires a $6,000 annual sponsorship.


We pay our writers, as a collective group, over $120,000 a year to write monthly articles for the 85 sponsored schools we now have as year-round members of our network, plus bonus coverage of live events that we post on the home page of hssr.com on a ongoing basis. In August, of 2021 the HSSR spent $6,000 to upgrade our web site so every article written on a sponsored school, since that date, is automatically archived for life! 


We mail our monthly publication to over 250 college athletic programs, from Newberry to Notre Dame. We were recognized by the South Carolina General Assembly in 2001 with a joint resolution honoring our service to high school athletic programs in South Carolina. In 2021, the HSSR was totally surprised to be recognized at halftime of a state championship basketball game with a “Distinguished Service Award” from the National Federation of High Schools. The HSSR was nominated for this service award by the South Carolina High School League and we were humbled to the moon and back to be so recognized.


In all honesty, we cover a lot of schools regardless of sponsorship. We cover the vast majority of SCHSL and SCISA state championship events in person, no matter what schools are in the finals. Our stats page, sponsored by Mark Grainger at Modern Turf, is free to any school in South Carolina who can send their stats to hsreport@aol.com, or directly to our stats master of nearly 40 years, Gerald Doolittle at sc7777@aol.com.


So, take a minute to look at our year-round sponsored school index on page 79 of this issue. If you do not see your favorite school listed, but would like to help support your favorite school, please call me direct at 843-200-9555. We will be increasing our sponsor fees on August; 1st so now is a great time to make statewide coverage happen for the hard-working athletes at your favorite school!

     

 

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