13 March 2008
SOUTH AFRICA : LOP Meets Teams
Yesterday LOP management had a meeting with the teams in the LOP and one of the issues that was raised was the lack of support at games. It was suggested that teams start running their teams professionaly so that they can start marketing and creating fan bases. This fan base would be the foundation of a regular crowd that would attend the LOP games.
The challenge is how do we entice spectators to leave whatever they are doing to come support a game on Friday or Sunday? Well I think a marketing strategy is the first place to start. Who's your target market and how are you going to convince them to support your team?
In the NBA, teams have support in their local cities and big franchise have supporters from all over the world. But the fans in the surrounding areas are the guys who's bums you are trying to get on seats.
This presents a bit of a challenge for teams in the LOP because some of them don't have a local support base or infrastructure. Teams like Egoli Magic, Wits Rebels, and Phuto's Fly don't really have a strong proposition for their 'fans'. But then again what about the varsities? Surely they should be in the best position to make this happen.
Back in the day when I played at Wits University our committee used the limited resources at our disposal to create a fan base amongst our students. All we needed was a computer, limited microsoft office knowledge and a printer and voila 100 or more people would attend our games. At one point we even had a cheerleading squad with girls lining up to be apart of it. The atmosphere at our games was electric, especially when we played the African Warriors or Vaal Tech.
Credit needs to obviously go to the 'hunks' who were recruited into the team. They were the drawcard for all the young ladies who loved seeing sweaty men running up and down the floor. But it wasn't just about the looks. We also played very entertaining basketball. People quickly realised that basketball is actually a very exciting sport to watch.
So why isn't the Wits Basketball Club, MGI, and Boston doing the same on their campuses? Major rivalries can be created, and even fanclubs. Further down the line they will be able to even convice sponsors to come on board, like we did with Loxion Kulca. If Standard Bank gave us that Sponsorship money back then we would have given them a lot more return on investement than the current team.
However, in order for LOP to achieve this teams need to be run like businesses. We can't keep doing the same things and expect things to change.
They say that 'stupidy is doing the same things and expecting different results'. We need to follow in the footsteps of Barrack Obama and ask for change. Let's make it happen.
The challenge is how do we entice spectators to leave whatever they are doing to come support a game on Friday or Sunday? Well I think a marketing strategy is the first place to start. Who's your target market and how are you going to convince them to support your team?
In the NBA, teams have support in their local cities and big franchise have supporters from all over the world. But the fans in the surrounding areas are the guys who's bums you are trying to get on seats.
This presents a bit of a challenge for teams in the LOP because some of them don't have a local support base or infrastructure. Teams like Egoli Magic, Wits Rebels, and Phuto's Fly don't really have a strong proposition for their 'fans'. But then again what about the varsities? Surely they should be in the best position to make this happen.
Back in the day when I played at Wits University our committee used the limited resources at our disposal to create a fan base amongst our students. All we needed was a computer, limited microsoft office knowledge and a printer and voila 100 or more people would attend our games. At one point we even had a cheerleading squad with girls lining up to be apart of it. The atmosphere at our games was electric, especially when we played the African Warriors or Vaal Tech.
Credit needs to obviously go to the 'hunks' who were recruited into the team. They were the drawcard for all the young ladies who loved seeing sweaty men running up and down the floor. But it wasn't just about the looks. We also played very entertaining basketball. People quickly realised that basketball is actually a very exciting sport to watch.
So why isn't the Wits Basketball Club, MGI, and Boston doing the same on their campuses? Major rivalries can be created, and even fanclubs. Further down the line they will be able to even convice sponsors to come on board, like we did with Loxion Kulca. If Standard Bank gave us that Sponsorship money back then we would have given them a lot more return on investement than the current team.
However, in order for LOP to achieve this teams need to be run like businesses. We can't keep doing the same things and expect things to change.
They say that 'stupidy is doing the same things and expecting different results'. We need to follow in the footsteps of Barrack Obama and ask for change. Let's make it happen.
# posted by afrbk : 17:13
