Chapter 468 Basketball and Business 2
"Jake, we are really interested in broadcasting this game, but before that I will have to have a brief meeting to find out if we have free time to broadcast this game on December 17th, if everything goes well I will call you in a few minutes."
"Okay, I"ll be waiting."
Jake was very confident that this time he would get the sponsors.h.i.+p because the TNT representative seemed genuinely interested in buying the game broadcast, as this money was for charity Jake didn"t mind receiving less than he expected, but he wouldn"t accept either with the other three broadcasters offered.
After almost an hour waiting for the TNT representative to finally call again, Jake had already thought of a value that might be acceptable, in the future a common NBA game would be worth an average of 6 million dollars to be broadcast by a broadcaster, Jake wanted a lot less than that.
"Jake, I talked to the directors of the broadcaster and we have time to broadcast the game on December 17th, are we really interested in broadcasting this game, but just to make it clear, will we have the exclusivity to broadcast this game?"
"Of course, we just want fans to see this game and also help a charity, you can even say that the income you paid for the game also goes to the charity, the costs of the game are already paid by the sponsors."
"This is great, so we want to buy the broadcast of this game, as it is for a charity we are thinking of buying for 1 million dollars, what do you think of that?"
"I think it"s a good value, the charity that receives this will thank you, so we have an agreement, I will send one of my a.s.sistants to send the signed contract to you."
"Okay, we hope it"s a good game."
Jake was really happy with the amount he got for that game, it was even more than he expected to get and thinking about inflation it was a value very close to what would be paid in the future for a normal game.
Jake was very happy to have managed to set everything up for the game he decided to do on a whim, he wanted to set this game closer to the date they were on, but Jake knew that some players were not yet in perfect physical condition to play 48 minutes.
But even though it was almost 1 month before the day of the game Jake was already excited to know that he could play with his friends, Jake asked Emily to send her a.s.sistants to solve the last details of the game and he returned to his normal routine.
Jake had already done the most difficult and with the teams, he hired to organize events the rest would be organized, Jake called Kate to tell her the good news first because his mother was still at the restaurant.
"Kate, luckily everything went well and I managed to organize everything for the game on December 17th, it will be broadcast on TNT."
"How great, Jake, I was hoping that everything would work out, you already know which charity you are going to donate that money to?"
"I am thinking of an inst.i.tution that I have already donated before and went there with my mother, it is an inst.i.tution that helps children with cancer, it helps mainly needy families who cannot afford treatment."
"That"s great Jake, I"m sure a lot of people can be helped with that money."
"I also hope, that I wanted to ask if you need any help with the show that you are going to do on game day? If you have any equipment, dancers, clothes, or anything needed for the show, you can tell me. "
"I don"t need many things, I have my dancers and my team that helps me with my shows, but I will need equipment and some things for the show, after all, it will have to be organized quickly at the break."
"Can you tell me a company that takes care of that and I"m going to hire them to organize it all."
Jake also told Kate that she would not be able to do a stage to sing and she and the dancers would have to perform on the court, Kate said she understood this and so they talked about more subjects of the show, Jake used the knowledge he had at other events like this to talk to Kate.
So the doubts she had about how she was going to do a show at the break were resolved and it would also help when she had to talk to the companies that would organize the equipment for the show.
After talking to Kate, Jake had to call the other players again to tell them about the good news, everyone was happy to know that the game would be broadcast on TNT, Jake even said that he offered it to other companies that didn"t offer fair value and the players agreed with it.
Jake didn"t know, but in doing so he gained more respect from all the players he invited to this game, after all, Jake was a novice player who was playing on the Los Angeles Lakers team and was not afraid to organize a game like this that could be misinterpreted by team owners.
The night when Eva came home Jake said excitedly to her that he had managed to organize everything for the game and that everything had worked out, Eva was very happy also because she knew how Jake was committed to it and was dedicating himself to organize this game.
Even more because Jake was still training every day with Coach Davis, even though Jake was tired less than he used to be, he still got tired a good part of the day when he did the marathon and 10,000 meters training.
After that the days pa.s.sed quickly and Jake continued with his routine, he continued to go out with Kate as many times as he left before they started dating, but after they started dating they had dates in more private places where they could kiss.
By the end of November, the preparations for the game were complete and TNT started making commercials between programs announcing the game on December 17, it was also announced that Kate would sing in this game in which the NBA rookies would play.
At the same time, tickets began to be sold in the Miami area, tickets costing between $ 50 and $ 200, for a game that was a special event it was cheap and $ 200 was the cabins and best seats.
Jake did this because they had raised more than $ 2.1 million for charity with the money Jake would personally donate, so the value of the tickets would not increase that much.
Even so, if all the tickets were sold they would collect over 1.2 million dollars, Jake also thought that maybe Kate fans could buy the tickets to watch her sing two songs on match day.
That month the college basketball games had also started, and to Jake"s happiness, the Tar Heels team had yet to miss a game this new season just as it did in Jake"s past life.
If this continued so they could get closer to the UCLA team record, Jake had heard that Vince Carter was at university studying and helping the basketball team while training to be ready for when the NBA arrived.
If Jake didn"t have so many things to do these months he could have done it too, luckily for Jake he was almost graduated and just needed to attend cla.s.ses when the Los Angeles Lakers team was out of season to get his diploma.
The problem was that when other commitments arose for Jake at that time he would not have time to take cla.s.ses to get his diploma, Jake thought that when the film The Matrix came out and was a success the continuation of the film would be approved and maybe the Wachowskis would want to make the recordings with Jake in those months that the Los Angeles Lakers team didn"t have games.
With the end of the month has arrived, Jake decided it was time to make dinner at his house and invite Kate, so Kate could finally meet his mother, Jake was taking a while because they started dating very recently.
But Kate even talked about the times she wanted to meet Eva and Jake had already talked about it with his mom, so it was time for them to talk to his mom so they could prepare this special dinner for Kate.
"Mom, I think the time has come to prepare that dinner so Kate and you can finally meet and talk, she talks about you always and you also said that you wanted to meet my girlfriend."
"Okay, Jake, if you think this is the right time we can do this weekend, what do you think?"
"I think it"s a good idea, let"s prepare a great dinner for Kate, with you and me cooking she will be in for a surprise."
"Hahaha, you cook better than me Jake, if only you cook it will be even better, but since you want it I will also make some dishes that are praised in the restaurant."
Jake wasn"t kidding when he said that he intended to surprise Kate with this dinner, he cooked better than some chefs, especially now that he had gained more system agility and thus he had more skill with his hands.
And Eva"s restaurant was always packed and was praised by all the city"s food critics, so it wasn"t wrong to say that with Jake and Eva cooking they could make dishes better than some restaurants.
The other day Jake had another date with Kate where he took her to an amus.e.m.e.nt park, after that date he told her that they would have dinner at his house at the end of the week and just as Jake expected Kate was very happy to know about that.