Black Media Is Still Not Receiving A Fair Share of the Advertising Revenue

By Pat Freeman, The Mighty O’Ba

By Pat Freeman, The Mighty O’Ba

The Western New York region has two major sports franchises here that do not include Black owned credentialed media outlets in their marketing program. The is sue of Black media being left out of the revenue share of advertising dollars seems to be a subject that I must continue to talk about.

The professional NHL franchise gears their total marketing to one population group and has done extraordinarily little if anything in the African American commu nity since Dominic Hasek’s tenure here. It is amazing to me as to why you would have a sports franchise and not attempt to expand your fan base. This is the strategy of the Hockey operation here that does not even attempt to grow their fan base, especially the African community, which has media outlets and personnel that covers these sports on a regular basis. The problem in this practice must start with ownership who has failed to address this issue top to bottom.

The Professional Football Franchise has not included that Black media has four credentialed media people that cover the franchise on a regular basis but does not spend an adequate share of their marketing budget with any of else despite being given professional coverage. The professional football team also has failed to grant merchandising opportunities to people of color as another way of ensuring full economic participation in an entity that receives a huge portion of tax subsidies to exist.

The solution is amazingly simple in that each of the 32 franchises should invest $1 million into their credentialed media outlets of color around the country. This will help these outlets expand their coverage of your sport in which you will make this investment back 20-fold in merchandise sales and other benefits attached to these franchises.

I guarantee such a bold investment will be worth the undertaking