 nick
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Posted: 17 December 2008, 4:44 AM
I don't like it; this shift towards sports-consumerism. But I'm not sure that orienteering is in much of a position to fight the trend.
Heres an argument to chew over: make 'em pay.
Our sport is much easier with many hands to share to work, and clubs are a good way of managing the division of labour. Clubs are undermined by sports-consumers who will pay-to-play, but aren't interested in contributing in other ways. These guys load the work onto the small group of volunteers, who eventually burn-out. If, in order to "grow" our sport, we're trying to attract sports-consumers by competing on price (especially cf: club members) then we're playing ourselves further into a corner. So, stuff em.
In response, one option is to turn professional. This has its attractions of course (it certainly relieves pressure from the volunteer base) but also its disadvantages. Commercial ventures are arguably less likely to attract the funding that we're discussing in another thread, though maybe more likely to attract sponsorship. A commercial venture must also be viable ie: profitable. Commercial adventure event operations can also be vulnerable to the machinations of local government (take Shaun & Phil's recent experience in dealing with ARC as a timely example).
Another option is to compete on quality rather than price. The overall sports-consumer spend must be huge. A well run orienteering event has IMO a quality advantage over many other "adventure" and running events which are already more expensive than us. Why not seek to distinguish ourselves on this front, instead of price? I'd say that streamlining the back-end (admin, mapping, comp structure, etc) would help immensely - eg: the comprehensive website that Simon discussed in a neighbouring thread - in terms of presenting a quality experience to our 'new market'. We'd be looking at making it a smooth and easy process to enter, pay, arrive, register, run, receive results and post race analysis. If we can offer such a product, perhaps sports-consumers would pay *more* not less?
Alone, even a sleak new product won't break us out of the pattern of consumer vs volunteer. To do this, club memberships need to offer conspicuous benefits to members that are non-members will find attractive. In the long-term I don't think that a magazine and a marginal discount on entry fees is going to cut it. Ideas may include: systematic technique and physical coaching; a "free" SI card with your first membership; discounted event fees; access to in-depth race-analysis (eg: winsplits pro or whatever its called); discount deals on physio/ nutrition advice & products/ sports massage / sports gear. And as nebulous as this may seem, a sense of belonging to something cool, new, hard-core, cerebral, impressive. I believe that sports-consumers seek a sense of superiority over others. They want to be cooler. We can sell a sense of superiority over those who merely run the streets, or who need to be told where to run. Theres our brand strength, right there. And with membership comes a requirement that you contribute. No reason this can't be systematised to reward those who do the work (eg: if you pick up controls you get 100 points. When you reach 500 points you get a free entry - or whatever - you get the idea. Freely available web-resources should make this fairly manageable in terms of administration workload.)
I guess, boiled down, I'm suggesting that we play to our strengths.
Footnote re: NZ O Magazine - I don't think we can take the current high quality for granted. I reckon Mick's done an awesome job, but we can't expect him to do it forever.
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