A step-by-step promotional playbook: what to post, when to post it, and how Tuesday’s game does the heavy lifting for Friday’s crowd.
It’s Wednesday morning. Friday’s game is 48 hours away. Tuesday night’s game ended with a final score, highlight clip, a game stream, and a crowd that cared. All of that is fuel. This playbook shows you what it looks like to start building it the moment the game ends on Tuesday.
Here’s exactly what goes out, when, and why.
Click below to jump to the section you need:
Every final buzzer is a starting point for the next event.
Tuesday’s result isn’t just a score to post and move on from. It’s a headline, a hook, and a reason for fans to show up on Friday. A win with momentum becomes “Can they keep it going?” A tough loss becomes “Bounce-back game Friday.” A breakout performance becomes the story you build the week around.
The connective tissue is what you post after Tuesday night’s game. The score post, highlight clip, and matchup graphic is what gets people to show up for Friday night’s game. Not because they’re passively informed, but because you’ve given them a reason to care.
The previous version of this problem was about recognizing that you already have the assets. This playbook is about using them in the right order.
The scenario: You played Tuesday night and have a home game Friday. Here’s the day-by-day sequence that turns Tuesday’s result into Friday’s crowd.
Promotion starts before the final whistle.
Why it matters: The audience is warmest right now, during and immediately after the game. Don’t let that attention disappear before you’ve pointed it somewhere.
Wednesday morning is peak attention. Fans are still thinking about last night. Parents are talking. Students are in the hallway retelling the moments.
Here’s what goes out before 9 a.m.:
Key insight: Wednesday morning is the highest-intent window of the entire game week. Ticket purchases made today cost you nothing extra. They’re the easiest sell you’ll ever have — and most programs miss it entirely.
By now the score post is up and tickets are live.
This clip does two things. It allows the people who were their to relive the moment. And it recruits the people who weren’t. They see what they missed and don’t want to miss Friday.
One day out. Your job is simple: stay in front of people.
By the time Friday morning arrives, the hard work is done. Today is execution.
Each piece of content is doing a specific job:
Remove any one of these and the chain weakens. Run them in order and you’re not promoting a game — you’re building momentum.
Here’s a what this playbook looks like in action:
Tuesday night, Westfield High wins a district soccer match 2–0. The game streams on NFHS Network. A few hundred families watch live.
Wednesday morning at 8:47 a.m., the AD posts the final score with a caption about Friday’s home volleyball game. The matchup graphic is already in Fan Zone. The GoFan link goes up with it. An email goes to subscribers.
Wednesday afternoon, a 30-second clip of a second-half goal goes up on Instagram with a link to Friday’s tickets. It gets shared fourteen times before dinner.
Thursday, the AD posts a player spotlight on the volleyball team’s leading setter, pulls her stats from MaxPreps, and reminds followers that Friday is a district matchup.
Friday night: standing room in the student section. Three parents stop the AD before the game to say they bought tickets Wednesday morning after seeing the soccer post.
By Friday night, the crowd is built or it isn’t. The work that determines which one happened on Wednesday morning, not Thursday night. Athletic directors already do the hard part. You run the event. You manage the schedule. You keep everything moving. Promotion shouldn’t ask you to start over every week.
Games create assets. Assets create momentum. Momentum, deployed in the right order at the right time, creates crowds. The playbook is simple. The window on Wednesday morning is real. The only question is whether you use it.
Want to see this sequence in action for your program? Schedule a 20-minute walkthrough and we’ll show you exactly how your last game becomes the foundation for your next one.
Seven to ten across the Tuesday–Friday window, spread across two or three platforms. The matchup graphic, ticket link, and highlights are generated automatically through PlayOn.
The sequence still works — it just relies more heavily on photos, score posts, and athlete content. That said, the stream is what produces the highlight clips that do the heaviest lifting in this playbook. If you’re not streaming games on NFHS Network, you’re leaving your best promotional asset on the table.
Yes, if the tools are connected. The athletic directors running this sequence most consistently aren’t the ones with the biggest staffs. They’re the ones using integrated platforms so they’re never tracking down assets in five different places. PlayOn HQ is designed specifically for the one- or two-person athletic department.
Wednesday morning’s score post with the ticket link. It’s the highest-intent moment of the entire week. Fans are thinking about last night’s game, the emotion is fresh, and the ask — “come see us Friday” — is the most natural sell you’ll ever have. If you do nothing else in this playbook, do that one thing before 9 a.m. on Wednesday.