01-09-2011, 03:05 AM
What a debate! This is an eye opener on so many levels for me as a new Marketing Director, really shows a few areas up.
From a narrow minded point of view based on my role, I don't believe that putting ALL the sensory boards in the Open Events are going to be beneficial to gaining commercial support. My clear aim is by this time next year to have "location tailored" sponsorship on the live feeds for every event in the calendar that wishes to use the sensory board. So I need the largest amount of players tuning into the live feed to make this profitable. (more hits means higher price of advertising!)
Now this is my logic.
Someone mentioned earlier that tennis/football wont show a few Premiership games then go to Sunday League. Well....if we're going to do comparisons, what about boxing which has a Main Event, co-main events, a televised undercard and a non televised undercard. Not to mention the occasional amateur/junior fights that precede that.....
Chess is a complex sport. It's not like tennis where we could relate to a Roger Federer. We COULD imagine hitting those shots and moving that way...even though we can never ever achieve it. It's watchable, its fun.
The problem is that in chess, not everyone understands everything. We all know the same moves but like an art, some players play with such a deep precision and depth whereas some of us are just like boxing sluggers who just go wild for the knockout blow and leave our chins open. Some of those sluggers will never have the time, patience and/or ability to ever get to the precision levels. And the key point....because they will never get to those levels, they won't enjoy a precision game as much as they would a game of their level, or even a level above.
So is it fair to someone of a "Minor" level shall we say to have nothing but "Open" games to digest? In a three-tier tournament for example; show 4 Open games, 2 Major and 2 Minor games and that Minor player has 2 games of his/her level and 2 games a level above. So they are being introduced to what it takes to play well at the next level so you HAVE incentive to get better. (Which was J*R's worry from earlier) I think people at the Open level sometimes forget that while their is a lot of work to get to an Open level, there has to be "stepping stones" clear to someone to make them WANT to learn.
And from my narrow minded Marketing eyes, that's where I have to put my strategy focus.
We don't have a lot of Open players. It's the same old players playing in tournaments. We have tournaments where in some cases the Open section has 20 players, the Minor has 50+ and yet the big prizes are going to the Open. The Minor is varied enough in different players that play in different tournaments but every level up, the variety of players in each tournament diminishes significantly till we get to the Open where it's fundamentally the same faces. Yet the Minor player is paying the same entry fee in most occasions so in effect, they are funding the bigger tournament's extra prize money. For that reason, don't you think they have to be looked after too?
I have to find ways of getting the most people into these live games. When the majority of active players are at a Minor/Major level I have to cater for them as well as showing the elite games as well. There has to be a carrot for someone to work harder and get better. Give them a stepping stone and they can achieve it.
I believe that the best way of doing this is to show a variety of games.
As for the cost, I agree that it should be along the lines of £100 a tournament.....eventually! But for that, there has to be a specific commercial benefit shown to the tournament director. And sponsorship cannot be achieved at a consistent level overnight.
A £50 minimum donation initially should be significant.
Questions/comments fire away
From a narrow minded point of view based on my role, I don't believe that putting ALL the sensory boards in the Open Events are going to be beneficial to gaining commercial support. My clear aim is by this time next year to have "location tailored" sponsorship on the live feeds for every event in the calendar that wishes to use the sensory board. So I need the largest amount of players tuning into the live feed to make this profitable. (more hits means higher price of advertising!)
Now this is my logic.
Someone mentioned earlier that tennis/football wont show a few Premiership games then go to Sunday League. Well....if we're going to do comparisons, what about boxing which has a Main Event, co-main events, a televised undercard and a non televised undercard. Not to mention the occasional amateur/junior fights that precede that.....
Chess is a complex sport. It's not like tennis where we could relate to a Roger Federer. We COULD imagine hitting those shots and moving that way...even though we can never ever achieve it. It's watchable, its fun.
The problem is that in chess, not everyone understands everything. We all know the same moves but like an art, some players play with such a deep precision and depth whereas some of us are just like boxing sluggers who just go wild for the knockout blow and leave our chins open. Some of those sluggers will never have the time, patience and/or ability to ever get to the precision levels. And the key point....because they will never get to those levels, they won't enjoy a precision game as much as they would a game of their level, or even a level above.
So is it fair to someone of a "Minor" level shall we say to have nothing but "Open" games to digest? In a three-tier tournament for example; show 4 Open games, 2 Major and 2 Minor games and that Minor player has 2 games of his/her level and 2 games a level above. So they are being introduced to what it takes to play well at the next level so you HAVE incentive to get better. (Which was J*R's worry from earlier) I think people at the Open level sometimes forget that while their is a lot of work to get to an Open level, there has to be "stepping stones" clear to someone to make them WANT to learn.
And from my narrow minded Marketing eyes, that's where I have to put my strategy focus.
We don't have a lot of Open players. It's the same old players playing in tournaments. We have tournaments where in some cases the Open section has 20 players, the Minor has 50+ and yet the big prizes are going to the Open. The Minor is varied enough in different players that play in different tournaments but every level up, the variety of players in each tournament diminishes significantly till we get to the Open where it's fundamentally the same faces. Yet the Minor player is paying the same entry fee in most occasions so in effect, they are funding the bigger tournament's extra prize money. For that reason, don't you think they have to be looked after too?
I have to find ways of getting the most people into these live games. When the majority of active players are at a Minor/Major level I have to cater for them as well as showing the elite games as well. There has to be a carrot for someone to work harder and get better. Give them a stepping stone and they can achieve it.
I believe that the best way of doing this is to show a variety of games.
As for the cost, I agree that it should be along the lines of £100 a tournament.....eventually! But for that, there has to be a specific commercial benefit shown to the tournament director. And sponsorship cannot be achieved at a consistent level overnight.
A £50 minimum donation initially should be significant.
Questions/comments fire away