Ok, so I didn't get this post done before the end of the board of director's meeting, but hey, it's not like they would have listened to anything I had to say anyway.
As promised, here's the post I've been promising. And also as promised, it is
looooong. So you may want to pour yourself a BIG glass of wine before you jump into this. Maybe make sure you have some sustenance too.
To USS.
We fans have been tough on you. In the spirit of offering solutions instead of just criticizing the problems, I submit to you the following. I’m certainly do not consider myself a marketing and advertising guru, but my first career path was as a graphic artist and illustrator. Almost everything I worked on had to do with some sort of marketing and advertising, and the main goal of that advertising was ultimately to...
– wait for it –
sell stuff.
After a certain point, some of those marketing and advertising concepts do tend to sink in and rub off on ya. So here's some unsolicited 2 cents for you.
On:
COMPETITIONSI appreciate a freebie as much as the next person, but you really do need to stop this habit of not charging for entrance to view an event. Charge something –
ANYTHING! - when you put on a competition. Think of your skaters like dating…in fact, like most endeavors in life. People don’t tend to appreciate someone they don’t have to put any effort into and they definitely don’t appreciate anything they didn’t have to pay or work too hard for. If they didn’t have to put any effort into it, it must not be worth much. Count on being treated accordingly.
By not charging even a nominal fee, you pretty much scream to the world that these World Class Athletes aren’t worth anything. Maybe that’s your plan. If they’re treated like they’re worthless and lucky to be there, they are easier to control. You’re just going to have to start doing things differently if you want this sport to grow…and by grow, I mean attract MONEY as well as fans. Believe it or not, those two DO go hand in hand. (and I’ll come back to the fan point later).
So much of our society is based on ‘perceived value’. Just look at the stock market. It is ultimately not in USS’s best interests to have your actions and decisions put the athletes in a position of being ‘perceived’ as so much less than what they are – World Class Athletes. Promote them as such, and charge accordingly. I know times are tough, but most of us can still afford to fork out a few bucks for something worthwhile. If anyone puts on an event, it should be a profitable one that is worth everyone’s while to host it.
If you still do want to give some entrance fees away for free, then continue to invite the local school kids (make fans for life!) on the less attended sessions, but I also suggest looking into the senior centers in your area as well. Many of them are on a fixed income and would appreciate the free…or even discounted ticket, and they do enjoy just about anything that gets them out of their little compound. College student are also those of limited resources who look for things to do on the cheap - and Lord knows, USS's fees for these events are not usually prohibitive. Concentrate on getting folks ‘hooked’ on speedskating. Make yourselves the ‘must see’ sport. (hey, if you can get us fans up at the wee hours of the morning looking at ‘blinking numbers’, then surely you should be able to promote the sport for a ‘live performance’).
MARKETING AND ADVERTISINGYou absolutely, positively, HAVE to start your advertising campaigns for these competitions months in advance. Do you see a concert for some popular music group being advertised only a week before the event? Of course not. Do you know why? Because most people have a life!
Think about who your target audience is. Olympic sports are the epitome of All American, Wholesome Goodness. One of your main target audiences is going to be FAMILIES. Those families have calendars that fill up months ahead of time. If you want your competitions to be put on their schedules of things to do, you’ve got to get them interested and committed months before. Get those tickets sold. If something else comes up for them and they can’t make it, it’s no skin off your nose, you’ve already sold the seat and gotten the money.
In places like the Oval, if the planned seating of 3000 sells out a month ahead of time, you’ve got time to punt and add more seating…instead of saying you’re sold out. (This happened at one of the World Cups in SLC before the last Olympics when Apolo was still skating). Pitiful.
Your advertising efforts do not need to be just expensive TV and radio ads either. It can be something as simple and inexpensive as screaming hot pink and day glow chartreuse flyers. Get the skaters involved, (after all this is all about getting folks to show up to watch THEM skate.) They could approach the local sports shops, colleges or places that they themselves patronize.
A script along the lines of: “Hi, my name is
(skaters name here). I’m an Olympic bronze medalist, and we’re having a short track competition in a month. Would you mind if we left some flyers here to let people know about it?”.
Offer the owner or manager some free tickets for their generosity in letting you advertise there for free.
On those flyers should be a
coupon for X amount of dollars or a
percentage off the regular price of a ticket. On those coupons should ALSO be
a line for putting the name of the company that the coupon was redeemed from. The coupon’s purpose isn’t just for goosing someone to come check out a competition by giving them a discount, it’s a way of tracking the effectiveness of your marketing and advertising. For instance, if you get a 60% return of your coupons from Joe Blows Sports Shop, and only 10% from the local newspaper, it becomes very apparent and easily tracked as to where to spend your time and limited advertising resources more effectively.
And don’t dismiss our admittedly wacko society’s addiction to coupons, or more accurately, assumption of getting a deal. Just look at the recent debacle that is J.C. Penny’s marketing strategy. The CEO assumed that customers would much prefer to have everyday low prices on everything instead of the occasional coupons on specific, limited items. Their sales went into the toilet. (apparently that model only works for Walmart, where the public’s assumption already is that you’re buying cheap stuff, cheaply.)
I’ve heard local artists say they jack their prices into the stratosphere, offer a coupon, and sell more - even though the customer is paying more, than if they just kept the prices reasonable on a daily basis in the first place. Go figure. Like Pavlov’s dog, Americans have been trained. They look for discounts and coupons, and just can’t stand it if they don’t feel like they’re getting a deal – or an outright steal. As Mr. Spock is so fond of pointing out, humans just aren’t logical…
FANSOnce you’ve gotten the fans to show up to a venue, stop treating them like gum wads on the bottom of your shoes that are just completely, totally and utterly putting you out.
I’ve been a fan of short track for quite some time now. The group of fans just in our little ‘posse’ come from all over the country. From New England to S. California. Do you ‘get’ that we aren’t local yokels and actually had to pay for a flight, hotel rooms, rental cars, meals out, etc…just so we can see a competition? In this sport, you don’t come to us, we have to come to you. Silly us, we’d all like to be able to sit and cheer together as a group when we do, and have those seats be decent ones once we get there. We’re willing to pay more for those seats, and have. So imagine our dismay when we show up and no one has any idea where to put us, knows nothing about any ‘special seating’, and are quite annoyed that we actually expect you to come through with what you promised us when we bought those more expensive tickets.
What we often encounter is the copping of the attitude of “Well, I guess we’ll condescend to let you sit in the VIP section (which is almost always completely empty, especially in the less popular sessions) for now until we figure out what to do with you”. We were dismissively informed in no uncertain terms that we would NOT be sitting there during the more popular viewing times and every time we left to ‘relieve our inner tensions’, or just get a cup of coffee, upon returning we were disdainfully reminded of this fact yet again with such obvious contempt, I was beginning to wonder if I had some oncoming visible vestiges of the plague that I somehow was not personally aware of.
As we dutifully left and went and sat with the rest of the obviously perceived great unwashed for the more popular sessions, we almost always look across the rink to the still practically empty VIP sections for the remainder of the competition…
*Hey dudes, nice ‘tude. Way to grow the sport...Honestly, is this any way to treat your hardcore fans who choke up beaucoup dinero to travel and support your sport year in and year out? (And in case USS is too dense to figure this one out, the answer is ‘NO’).
And while we fans appreciate the Spaghetti Night Feed, and/or various other eating arrangements during the competitions, I think I can speak for most fans and say we’re more than happy to forgo that little perk and forage for our own meals. What we really want for an upcharged ticket is decent seats where we can all sit together, and we don’t have to fight to stake out a claim for those seats from the general public who lives in the area and probably doesn’t care all that much where they sit anyway.
…and I can’t even
begin to address the sheer cluelessness and/or elitist arrogance of the official who went up to a bunch of fans at a competition and decried “Apolo isn’t skating anymore. Why are you even here?”
Excuse me for a moment, I still need to stop and shake my head in sheer disbelief over that one...
*Dude, nice ‘tude. Way to grow the sport…
And while we’re on the subject of Apolo…
If I were USS, and I had a marque athlete like that (for nearly an entire freaking decade!) - I would have ridden that marketing and advertising pony for everything it was worth to grow the sport…and made it worth his while to do so. Lord knows he did his part to promote himself to the general public and become a household name and draw attention to his sport. Talk about wasted opportunities!
Such behavior makes it clear that the power brokers at USS really aren’t interested at all in growing the sport. They’re only interested in themselves. First. Last. And Always. They want the sport to remain small. They want to keep their power trips and perks. And they want to keep the skaters broke and subjugated.
Skaters like Apolo and Shani seem to be more or less thorns in their sides, instead of the shining hope for the sport’s survival. (aarrggh!!! Skaters with their own money – and power! But we can’t bully and manipulate them d@mmit!!! Oh, the sheer horror of it all...)
*Dudes. Nice ‘tudes. Way to grow the sport. But growing the sport is beside the point with USS. What they want is the moola without the growth. As I stated at the beginning of this novella, and what seems to elude these guys, is that they NEED fans if they want the money to flow freely into their coffers from sponsors.
Sponsors are not, in fact, these completely altruistic entities who donate to USS from the kindness of their hearts. They’re advertising. They’re marketing themselves. They’re hocking their wares and selling stuff. And you can’t sell to air. What they want – and need - is bvtts in the seats.
And I’m not talking about a handful of beleaguered parents of some broke @ss skaters. They’re tapped to the limit, and they already gave at the office.
What they need are fans. A sizeable chunk of the general public that are fans of the sport and might actually be interested in what the sponsors are selling. Until USS has their ‘Come to Jesus’ moment on this simple fact, they’re going to continue to struggle…and continue to be broke. And no doubt continue to whine about it. They rely almost completely on their stipend from the USOC and seem completely ill equipped and/or unwilling to really go out and beat the bushes for that much needed added income from sponsors to make the organization run smoothly.
And don’t blame the lack of sponsors on the skaters, either. This has been going on looooong before any grievance was ever filed. It’s just merely a little more difficult for you to do something you were never capable or willing to do in the first place.
THE WEBSITEA lot was made over the rebranding of USS, the new website and of course, all the money
spent, wasted on it. The blurb said it was designed to be more fan friendly and interactive. In fact, it is none of those things. It’s pretty apparent this is a website for the skaters and the board, but more accurately, it’s just a platform to beg for donations, for the most part. There is no fan section, finding results for specific races is near non existent…or just so hidden, that I can never find it. What I can find is skater ‘rankings’ for the year, which is great for the skaters themselves and the powers that be, but sucks for a fan if you’re looking for specific info on how each skater did in any specific race or competition or who placed where in any given event. This info was somewhat easy to find in the old website. The new one is near impossible and what you do find is confusing and un decipherable.
And why isn’t the skate left blog link anywhere in the main headings? Or anywhere else easily found on the website for that matter? Both Lori and I run websites, and anything that applies or is affiliated with the website is easily found in the main header links, including the BB forum and the Ice and Times Blog. And we aren’t even web-builders. We bought a template and taught ourselves.
Why is something that’s so obvious to fans so completely obscure to whoever built this thing?
TV COVERAGE. I know I speak for a lot of fans when I say how frustrating it is to have skating coverage completely blacked out for the U.S.
Yeah, OK, NBC. You bought the rights. Now broadcast. There should be a clause that states, ‘if you bought the rights and then refuse to broadcast and cover the sport, you no longer have full control over that sports viewership. Another source will be open to the general public on the internet for competitions you didn’t feel like covering.”
Continuing the current policy is a massive disservice to the sport, the athletes and the fans and makes it near impossible for any NGB to promote their sport or their athletes and therefor, generate revenue.
*NBC. Nice ‘tude. Way to grow a sport…
MORE MARKETING AND ADVERTISINGI confess. I LOVE my little skater booklets that USS sells every season. I’m not usually one for autographs (I tend to take Rosie O’Donnels view of them. “What are you gonna do with my name on a napkin? When you’re an
adult???”)
But I made an exception for the skaters. The Olympic year booklet, I thought it would be a cool Olympic keepsake if I had the signature of every short track skater in it. (I’m still missing lots)
But I digress. These little gems are a wealth of information on the main players in both long track and short track. The unfortunate thing about these booklets is that they are often printed before the first competition of the season is held and the new National Team members are chosen, and there is always a skater or two who unexpectedly makes the team who wasn’t on it before and isn’t in the booklet. The way they are spirally bound, there’s no way of adding the skater later either. In addition, I also don’t really want several different booklets to lug around, I’d like to keep all my favorite skaters together in one booklet, even if they don’t make the team at every go.
Also, at one time, USS made 8 x 10 color ‘hero cards’ too of the skaters. A year or two later, to cut costs I’m assuming, the hero cards were made at half that size. I’m not sure if they still do them, and if they do, they didn’t quite take the concept far enough. As a former graphic artist, I have an understanding of the costs of printing, and seeing the way these two items were produced every year, made the dollar signs zip past my eyes like the cherries rotating down on a slot machine. For an entity always crying broke, there is a real waste of money on something that could be much more streamlined to cover all bases simultaneously and also be much more user friendly in the process.
This is what I propose.
As a fan, what I would LOVE is a small (but deep) three ring binder the same size as the current skater booklets. If you’re a new fan, you would buy the binder plus that years ‘packet’ of current national team skaters (along with the standard general info that is usually in the booklets.) If a skater makes the team after the printing of that packet, only that skater’s card need be printed, and it could be slid into the binder with the current packet. After you already have the binder, you can add new packets for every year as you wish, keeping the previous years skaters in the binder as well, (you could tab them by year) or just the additional skaters who are currently part of the national team.
The next year, the purchaser would already have the general info and the binder and a large percentage of the skaters on the national team cards, therefor, these items will not need a large run of printing every year for redundant info that fans already have in their existing binders. You don’t incur spiral binding costs either. Of course, you would need to keep a small supply of currant and complete binders for new fans who need to purchase their first USS binder, but USS would really be cutting down on their printing costs if they could streamline this down to the bare minimum instead of redundantly reprinting the exact same info every year.
I'd also like a little pocket inside to put loose paper for notes, like the sheets that have all the skaters helmet numbers on it when we go to competitions.
Also, by putting the skater info front and back like the hero cards, instead of the skaters picture on the backside of one card on the left, and their info on the front side of the other card on the right as they currently are in the booklets, you can use them to do double duty as a loose hero card or as part of the skater binder packet. You just need to leave some room on the edge of the card to accommodate the 3 hole punch necessary for the 3 ring binder.
This is all plenty of info and ideas to mull over for one night. Poster @beenthere above gave you several more. I’ll be willing to bet any given individual on this forum could come up with plenty more.
The bigger issue is having USS open to implementing new ideas, or even accepting old ones that have been around for ages. There’s obviously not a single diploma in business, sales or marketing in the bunch. Those that have those skills are quickly shouted down.
If war is ‘old men sending young men to die’,
then the board of directors of these entities are ‘old skaters, NGB’S, the USOC, the IOC and corporations making lots of money and perks off of the sweat, work and dreams of struggling young men and women who did the labor’.