July 17, 2026
July 17, 2026
Westside High School
Westside High School partnered with Scoreboard Media in August 2023 to run its scoreboard sponsorship program to remove the workload of sponsorship sales from the athletic department while bringing in national-brand deals it couldn't have closed alone. Three years in, sponsorship revenue is consistently growing, with notable sponsors including the University of Nebraska, Chick-Fil-A, and Velocity Clinical Research on the boards.
"Every athletic director talks about time, you feel like there's more work than there is time in the day. When you can offload something as important as this to a third party, and elevate the sponsorship side of things to a level you just wouldn't have time for, that's super helpful."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, WestsideHigh School
Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska is a Class A program in the heart of Omaha, with strong athletics, a deeply engaged community, and a fan base that fills the stadium on Friday nights.
In 2022, the school upgraded their stadium scoreboard to a full LED video scoreboard system funded by the Westside Foundation. In order to recoup the value of the scoreboard, the athletic department began selling advertising space on the scoreboard.
Brad Metzler, the assistant AD at the time recently promoted to Athletic Director, worked alongside then-AD Tom Kerkman to run the sponsorship program in-house. While they had the connection and drive, they simply did not have the time to focus on selling sponsorships.
"I was a business teacher and a football coach, and then went into the dean role and assistant AD. Every single day I had a caseload of 400 students."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, Westside High School
"When you're also trying to go out and pitch businesses — and even the businesses that have committed to you, if they want to change something about the ad that's running, maybe they want to add a 10-second commercial — that's a lot of work."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, Westside High School
Brad estimated he was spending a couple of hours a week on it during the ramp-up. Since they began this program in the summer, it initially felt manageable, but quickly became unsustainable heading into the school year.
Through their existing relationship with Scorevision, Westside was introduced to Scoreboard Media as an option to run the sponsorship program on the school's behalf.
Scoreboard Media provides hands-off sponsorship management to schools with existing LED video scoreboards. The school receives a dedicated sponsorship coordinator who works as an extension of the team to sell sponsorships, manage ads, and maintain contracts and renewals. The program is free to the school, and the school keeps 50% of the sponsor revenue.
Giving up a percentage of that revenue wasn't easy to accept. For a school working to pay the foundation back and generate funding for future investments, every dollar counted.
But Brad and Tom realized that their program could truly benefit from having someone solely focused on selling sponsorships.
"It would be nice if we went out and sold $25,000. Yes, it would be nice to recoup all $25,000. But if Tom and I can raise $25,000 or maybe $50,000 on our own, imagine what a company that specializes in this — where that's what they're doing all day, every day — could go out and do for us. We really wanted it maximized."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, Westside High School
The other concern was what would happen to the sponsors Westside had already brought in themselves. Would those get grandfathered in or would Scoreboard Media take a cut on relationships the school had done the work to build?
The program honors already-standing sponsors and even supports them in updating their ads to the new software and maintaining contracts for future years.
"To Scoreboard Media's credit, they were great. They said, hey, if you send us their logos, we'll help get everything into the slide deck but we will not take the 50% cut from what you guys went out and did. They recognized we put in the time and effort to secure those sponsorships. Let us take it from here, knowing we're not going to take any of that revenue."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, Westside High School
With this, Brad and Tom partnered with Scoreboard Media in August of 2023.
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Westside’s sponsorship coordinator provided by Scoreboard Media, Brian Husmann, knows the area intimately and has formed a great relationship with the community. Brad works with Brian on an ongoing basis, with regular check-ins making sure the program goes as he wants it to.
Brian handles sales, contracts, creative, renewals, and all the little things that a sponsorship program of this caliber needs, letting Brad focus on being an AD.
"I was very honest — we're giving up a percentage of revenue, and in exchange, I want this totally off my plate. Not that I don't want to help. I'll certainly give Brian insider information or insight on strategy, who he could go after. But the day-to-day details, things functioning well — I need him to do that. Problem-solve and find leads. And if I reach out to Brian, I expect to hear back within a day or two. To his credit, he always does."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, Westside High School
But, the part Brad talks about most isn't the sales itself. It's that Brian actually knows Westside.
Westside is a small district in the center of Omaha with a strong alumni base and a tight-knit business community. This meant Brian needed to know who he was speaking to in order to. Westside just opened its Life Complex, a privately-funded new facility at the school that was funded through many local donations. It was important that Brian didn’t go to the same businesses donating to this and ask for more sponsorships to maintain good relationships in the community, and Brian made sure of that.
"Brian does a really good job within our district because he understands some of the nuances at Westside. We have supportive businesses and a strong alumni base, but you also don't want to step on toes. He keeps his ear to the ground and knows what's going on while not overstepping."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, Westside High School
Since Scoreboard Media took over, the sponsorship deals have gotten bigger, longer, and more creative than what Brad and Tom were closing on their own.
"It's been more multi-year deals. The dollar amounts have increased. There's more flexibility in the packages — a lot of companies are asking, can we set up a table and hand out merchandise? Being on-site is a big tipping point. Each deal has been pretty unique."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, Westside High School
And the value of these sponsorships has extended beyond the revenue they bring to the school. Having major brands visible on the scoreboards, and even in person at the games, has brought Westside High School’s sporting events to the next level.
The clearest example is Chick-fil-A.
Chick-fil-A came on as more than a scoreboard advertiser. Their sponsorship at Westside includes on-site activations - selling their products at football, basketball, and volleyball games while their brand runs on the board.
"Every single time we have an event where we're selling Chick-fil-A, we get a lot of positive feedback. People think it's impressive. And I'm 95% confident we were the first school in the Metro to start selling Chick-fil-A at our events. Now you'll see it at quite a few places. I'm proud of that."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, Westside High School
That's the kind of deal that wouldn’t have been feasible by the school selling sponsorships on their own.
At three years in, the partnership is delivering on its original goal. The revenue the scoreboards generate has gone back to the foundation that funded the scoreboards upfront to pay back the investment and help fund other school programs, equipment, and opportunities.
And the program continued to grow with new sponsors supporting the school and yearly contract renewals.
"It's consistently grown every year, and it's significant enough that what we're doing here continues to make sense."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, Westside High School
For a partnership that started as a way to solve a specific problem — how to sell scoreboard ads when the AD's office doesn't have time to sell them — it's turned into something Westside plans to keep going.
"We've been really happy with it, and we look forward to continuing the relationship."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, Westside High School
"Understanding that you're going to have a rep who answers your phone calls, reaches out to you when they have issues, and problem-solves, it gives me a lot of peace of mind. I feel like a lot of athletic directors would feel the same way."
— Brad Metzler, Athletic Director, Westside High School
