KAPPA LEAGUE TV SPOTLIGHT
The Growth of Kappa League TV
By Damon Peebles
G oing into the 84 th Grand shall Jones (Theta 1980), spoke to as many brothers as he was able to, sharing the vision he had for the newest national mentoring initiative, Kappa League TV; a national YouTube channel dedicated to telling the stories of young men in the Kappa League program, nationwide. With around 500 subscribers at the time, many more were required to reach the goal of 10,000 subscribers. Chapter meeting in Philadel- phia last year, National Guide Right Spokesman, John Mar- Brother Jones said, “We started by establishing a market; so I would go around and travel from place to place and help chapters to create videos and help them to see how creating these vid- eos helps them to document their works to which they can then show that to future parents that are interested in hav- ing their kids come into Kappa League. They can also show it to funding entities that want to know what Kappa League is doing, and why they would want to give us money, and it has given many chap- ters within the organization, a tool to use to expand the work that they do in the community…It's been a really amazing thing to watch.” Creating a strong media presence of stories in the run up to 10,000 subscrib- ers is something the Kappa League TV committee is striving for. “Our main goal is to give our young men the opportunity and the wherewithal to create their own narrative about who young Black men are and how our communities func- tion. So, for instance, the larger media space tends to project young Black men as thugs and hoods, and they grab the most sensational videos of young Black men who have gotten in trouble, and we know from our own experience, that that's not the majority of who young Black men are. So we want to give these young Black men that are in the
majority, a platform to create, establish and support the narrative of who they are, which is that they're smart, they're articulate, they're hard working, they're college bound, and Kappa league is the perfect place for them to express that part of who they are,” Brother Jones explains. One way to attract more subscribers to the YouTube ® channel, was to diver- sify and add to the content. “We had to create multiple playlists based on the interest of the people that were coming to watch Kappa League TV, that there's more than just news reports, there's sports reporting about Kappa men that are in the national media that are achieving highly on the sports platform. There's social justice program, where we highlight Kappa men that are very involved highly on a national level with social justice. So, because we've started to operate as a network, we've been able to broaden our appeal,” he said. This summer the National Guide Right Committee hosted a virtual National Kappa League Conference, and Kappa League TV played a promi- nent role with a workshop as well as an awards competition for 12 semi-finalists, vying for the “Video of the Year” award. Of the award competition, Brother Jones shared, “We wanted to look at where are the places that the Kappa Leaguers and the brothers are really excelling in production. We want to know not only which is the most popular video of the year, but who did the best job of cinema- tography who had the best sound design, who were the best team of reporters, anchors and field reporters. And what that allows us to lift up and recognize the production entities of the chapters that are excelling at the highest level and because of that, over the last year, we've been able to move from 500 to (over six thousand) subscribers. Our goal is to reach 10 thousand subscribers, at which
Critically-acclaimed, actor, producer and director, John Marshall Jones (Theta 1980) leads Kappa League TV. point we become a YouTube affiliate and get access to all the insider information and guidance that YouTube provides to their top content providers. So, we're really, we're excited about that. And we feel like we're going to get that done by the end of this year.” At 10 thousand subscribers, in addi- tion to gaining access YouTube’s studio in Seattle, Kappa League TV will be able to monetize its content. “One of the main things, and it's very important for the brothers to understand this, when we reach 4,000 viewing hours, You- Tube begins to place advertising on the Kappa League TV. And from that mo- ment forward, literally, you can help to finance the fraternity simply by watching Television about programming that is about you…It is an extraordinary change forward. And that's why we're asking every brother that reads this article right now, to go over to kappaleague.tv and subscribe right now, and then watch one playlist, hopefully the best videos of the year playlist, because every time that you watch Kappa League TV, you help to support the idea of YouTube supporting us. You watch TV, and we wait. We make money. Money at Kappa League TV,” he said. Which then assists with the ultimate goal of sending 140,000 Kappa Leaguers to college by 2032, largely to HBCU schools.
52 | SUMMER-FALL 2020 ♦ THE JOURNAL
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