Members Only Live streaming

Members only live streaming has come to the Garage Gym Life Media YouTube channel! The reason for switching to a members only format is simple: cost. We believe that the athletes we cover deserve quality live streams that don’t drop out, have crisp video quality and informed color commentary by knowledgeable analysts. The caveat is this costs money especially if we have to go outside of Metro Atlanta. This cost includes camera and other equipment maintenance, equipment rental if necessary, vehicle rental (if necessary), paying for STABLE Internet especially if we’re streaming from a field or parking lot, plus miscellaneous things that pop up with every broadcast. Check out the graphic below that I borrowed from industry leader, Beverly Boy that breaks down some of the costs inherent to streaming.

But Don’t You Get Paid?

Yes, contest organizers do pay a fee to have us come but what they pay barely covers our personnel costs and even if they cover our hotel and lodging when we travel out of town, there’s still food, fuel and equipment costs to consider. Again, it is easy to do a live stream but it’s NOT easy or inexpensive to do a live stream correctly. But we want to expand where we can go and how many events we’re able to cover, without increasing what we charge meet directors (because they’ll just pass those costs on to the athletes)so we had to find another solution.

Advantages of Members Only Live streaming

Rather than pay per view (PPV) which many viewers have come to accept as a cost of live streaming, we wanted to keep individual costs down while providing a consistent product. Viewer cost for individual live streams can vary from $2.99 on the low end to $39.99 for some professional bodybuilding shows. Going to a members only model allows us to spread that cost out across our viewership, getting a small fee of .99 cents a month from everyone who enjoys watching strength sports on our channel and allowing them to watch all of our live stream content, plus interviews and other exclusive content, rather than charging a succession of one time fees.

One other advantage of having our streams covered by members is the members get to determine which events we cover rather than having us be limited to only big events that can afford to pay us.

 

We Will Still Do PPV, Just Not Often

We will still have PPV events for larger shows just as we’ll still charge event promoters for the time being, but for us to reach our goal of monthly live streams in more places, we only need to grow the number of fans of strength sports who are willing to give a small monthly fee to support our channel. So just like cable television coverage of big name sports like the UFC, we’ll still do PPV but we plan to save our PPV events for big name competitions a few times a year and allow you to watch strength sports on a regular basis through your monthly subscription, again, just like cable television.

Why Not Get Sponsors?

We do have select brand partnerships but again, the brands across the fitness industry who support sports like powerlifting, strongman, Highland Games, grip sports, etc. are already funding competitions and providing cash prizes to lifters. It’s a big ask to go to those same brands to ask them for even more money. And there’s also the fact that sometimes, the sponsors who are willing to pay, aren’t on the approved lists for the organizations we cover. It creates controversy and confusion as some brands who may have already paid to sponsor an event, but who haven’t paid for live stream coverage, get upset at the meet director when they see a competitor’s ad run during the stream but not theirs. Members supported live streams don’t completely erase this problem but it does help to control it.

Become A Channel Member

Visit this link from a desktop computer or Android mobile device to become a member for only .99 cents and start watching our exclusive content today!