Lakeville North HS Football Makes Winning Changes On And Off The Field
Bianca Javate - Blog Writer
Photo Credit: John Cochrane (joncochranephotography.smugmug.com)
It was quite a rocky start for the Lakeville North High School (MN) football team during their first two seasons of playing. Lakeville High school had split into two back in 2005—resulting in the Lakeville North Panthers and the Lakeville South Cougars—and had hired Mike Zweber as the first North head coach. At the end of their first season, they had accumulated 5 wins in 9 games before falling short in the first round of the playoffs against Rochester Century. It was a fairly decent start for the new LNHS Panther team, but next year proved to be a season to forget as it culminated with just one win for the entire year. Change had to be made and it had to be done fast.
Their 2007 rebuild marked the shift toward an improvement in their record, going from 1-8 to 8-4 in just a year. This development continued until Zweber’s departure in 2010 which marked the start of the Brian Vossen era in Lakeville North. Under Vossen’s guidance, the Panthers emerged as the team to beat in 2018 as they boasted a 13-0 record sweep and a Minnesota State Championship. They kept themselves motivated throughout the year by rallying behind the slogan “Everybody Pays”—a slogan that inspired every member of the roster to play their absolute best regardless of the role that they have. This winning mentality eventually led to a state championship, thereby affirming the positive changes that the team has made since its inception.
Fortunately for the Panthers, the changes that Lakeville North made did not just happen on the field; it transcended to the team’s media coverage and fundraising methods.
For the longest time, Lakeville North provided information about their team through traditional printed media guides and programs. After all, this was what every other high school sports team did—who would want to go against the norm? But Lakeville North was not like every other team. Coach Vossen knew when to innovate and what they had to do to get ahead.
Given the effects brought forth by the pandemic which altered the way people viewed sports, teams had to adjust and pivot their operational models to adapt to the changing times. This included the ways that they would connect and engage with fans. In an interview with the City National Bank, the Players Media Group Vice President of Sports Media & Entertainment Christina Milano said that “Individual teams and leagues now have more pressure to create custom content outside of live competition… This level of intimacy serves every fan who wants to engage with their favorite team and player.” Thus, Coach Vossen and the Lakeville North Panthers could no longer just stick with what worked for them before the pandemic changed the game. If they wanted to stand out in this new sports media landscape, personal connection was key.
Lakeville North took the plunge and sought ways on how they could improve not just their media coverage but how they would engage with fans wherever they were. They also wanted to shake up the way they did their fundraising and increase their earnings to improve the program as a whole. This desire to move forward and adapt has led the team to working with Story of the Season.
Story of the Season supplied evergreen digital experiences to fans that brought them closer to the Lakeville North High School football team, their coaches, and the community surrounding them. They got to know a bit more about who these players were outside of the field through weekly coverage, personalized pages, adapted and interactive media coverage, senior spreads, weekly newsletters and recaps, and integrated sponsorship packages. Through these packages, where Lakeville North was able to use Story of the Season in conjunction with their re-existing sponsors, the team was able to raise $23,900 which covered the entire cost of their media coverage and earned additional funding for their program. Story of the Season then capped off the year with printed custom yearbooks for each senior and coach so that they had something tangible to remember their season by. These digital offerings were something that solely print programs could never do. Click here to see their Story of the Season!
“We switched from a hard copy game program to Story of the Season last year. Change is always concerning. But, the digital product we got weekly from [them] gave our community a much closer platform to follow our team all season long. It gave our players and parents a more personal weekly recap to enjoy throughout our season and it will provide easily accessible lifelong memories. It also gave our sponsors a much higher profile platform to showcase their business in exchange for their support. I would highly recommend Story of the Season for any team that wants to permanently Capture their season,” said Vossen.
As the sports scene and the entire Lakeville North High School football team continue to change, innovative solutions arise to propel them to the next level. Just as teams prepare for games, they must also prepare for the changes and demands that this digitally-centric world would bring. Change might be scary, but it is necessary as exhibited by the changes that Lakeville North made in order to achieve greatness.
Once your high school sports team is ready to take the leap and cater to the fans’ digital needs, Story of the Season is here to guide you through the process. Click here to learn more.
