USA WC DVDs: Feasible or Futile?

[Thunderpac]

I've been playing around with DVD authoring lately and got the idea to make a commercial set of USA World Cup matches ('90, '94, '98, and '02 sets). I got as far as inquiring with Infront, the FIFA's licensing partner, about the cost of licensing the matches. They got back to me with a load of questions about my business arrangement and how many units I expect to sell and on and on. I guess I should have expected that, but somehow I was hoping they might just say something like "we get x% of proceeds plus a base fee of $X."

My idea was to create DVD sets of the USA matches for each of the past four WC's and sell them for around $50 each. The idea is not to get rich, rather I want to make the matches available to soccer geeks like me and not lose money.

Does anyone know if this has ever been attempted? Any ideas as to how many copies could be sold? What would you be willing to pay for each set? I'm trying to decide if I should go any further with this or just go back to re-producing video tapes of the matches on DVD for my own use.

[Kronos]

Wow, that would be something...to have the US WC matches with DVD picture quality. I would defintely buy a set.

I don't think I'm much help to you, but I would be interested in hearing more on this subject.

Maybe some of our fellow BS posters can put their $ .02

[Brrca Fan redded]

Originally posted by Kronos
Wow, that would be something...to have the US WC matches with DVD picture quality. I would defintely buy a set.

I don't think I'm much help to you, but I would be interested in hearing more on this subject.

Maybe some of our fellow BS posters can put their $ .02 How sure one can be to get the best picture quality out your $50 bucks?. If it is VHS quality I am not going to spend a dime on it.

[nyrmetros]

I'd certainly be interestined in this DVD set. But how do you make a grainy VHS into DVD quality? I dunno anything but that stuff....

[Sachin]

How are you going to get the original game footage? That's the only way you're going to get top quality.

FIFA is right to ask for a business plan. Doing this is much harder and more expensive than you think. That's why people pirate things. :D

Sachin

[lightningback]

I would love to get my hands on those, as I'm sure other soccer freaks would, too. Since you are probably not set up to spend money to advertise, I would suggest seeing if you could partner/cross promote with soccer teams/organizations/vendors. Slap some logos on your DVD, include promo flyers with the DVDs, put banners with links to websites of your promo partners. Youth soccer organizations/clubs, MLS teams, and equipment suppliers might be good candidates. Some may say no, but if you get one or more then it's one or more partners than you had before.

[nyrmetros]

Have you contacted the USSF or MLS ?

[Kronos]

Originally posted by Sachin
How are you going to get the original game footage? That's the only way you're going to get top quality.

FIFA is right to ask for a business plan. Doing this is much harder and more expensive than you think. That's why people pirate things. :D

Sachin

This is the impression that I got. The only way this would work is if you got the original game footage.

To get my hands on original WC 2002 US match footage on DVD, with UK Commentary...a dream come true...

[Thunderpac]

The goal here isn't to convert VHS tapes to DVD and sell them. I don't know where that notion came from. I contacted Infront with the intention of licensing their original footage, which I believe they would provide to me in digital form. The finished product would be of the same quality of any DVD movie you might buy. There would likely be no commentary because that would involve additional licensing fees.

Thanks everyone for your input. There was quite a bit more skepticism than I expected, but that has helped me realize that with the amount of work and money involved here it is too risky.

[nyrmetros]

Skepticism is the name of the game. However if you could get the backing of the USSF and MLS and pool their resources in this project that would be really cool. I do wish you the best of luck, and please keep us informed of what is happening.