Making the mainstream press.
I was watching match of the day. I’m not really one for football but it’s useful to keep up with things. A little knowledge can sometime save the day. The afternoon in the pub when the drunk in the corner gets abusive. A few soothing words about his/her team can make a difference between a free drink and a punch in the face. My roofer gave me £100 off my last bill, mainly because I could converse with him on some basic level about his favourite team, Man UTD.
I started to flick through the sport section of the Guardian, the first seven or eight pages were mainly dedicated to football. I then began to think, what would it look like if Roller Derby was the major sport in the UK? Why isn’t it being reported in the sporting press?
The first was easy to visualise, I quickly knocked up a mock up based on the sports section of The Guardian. I would have used a tabloid, possibly the Daily Mail. Unfortunately I have a sever allergic reaction to the Mail. Frothing at the mouth, severe ranting and the need to set fire to it. Hence why I can’t have a copy in the house.
The second question I feel is equally easy to answer. The sport is still relatively underground, there isn’t a league system the public and easily understand, and while it’s popularity is growing the critical mass isn’t there to make sports editors take notice of it. It may make the run of paper as a curiosity piece now and again, but it goes no further.
How then, can it create a big enough impact to get picked up? I feel that it will be a slow process but if every team that holds a bout (and there are several each weekend now) get a press release out to the local paper before the event to generate interest, then a write up with photographs, hitting the sports editors desk first thing on the Monday after, it‘s a start. The paper may not pick up on it at first. But if editors of local papers all across the country keep receiving releases they will have start taking notice. It’s an effort, but if you undertake a media audit, you will be able to see how much coverage you are receiving when you do and how much it’d cost if you bought the space. The more visibility the team/sport receives in the press the easier it gets to advertise bouts and get a return on your investment, not just costs but also time. It also indirectly benefit the sport in general, raising awareness.
It wont happen overnight but a unified plan undertaken by all teams across the country would eventually create a critical mass, generating consistent coverage, raising awareness in the public, generate larger audiences and just maybe make sports editors realise it’s a sport they need to cover. In the meantime this is my mock-up of what could be.
I started to flick through the sport section of the Guardian, the first seven or eight pages were mainly dedicated to football. I then began to think, what would it look like if Roller Derby was the major sport in the UK? Why isn’t it being reported in the sporting press?
The first was easy to visualise, I quickly knocked up a mock up based on the sports section of The Guardian. I would have used a tabloid, possibly the Daily Mail. Unfortunately I have a sever allergic reaction to the Mail. Frothing at the mouth, severe ranting and the need to set fire to it. Hence why I can’t have a copy in the house.
The second question I feel is equally easy to answer. The sport is still relatively underground, there isn’t a league system the public and easily understand, and while it’s popularity is growing the critical mass isn’t there to make sports editors take notice of it. It may make the run of paper as a curiosity piece now and again, but it goes no further.
How then, can it create a big enough impact to get picked up? I feel that it will be a slow process but if every team that holds a bout (and there are several each weekend now) get a press release out to the local paper before the event to generate interest, then a write up with photographs, hitting the sports editors desk first thing on the Monday after, it‘s a start. The paper may not pick up on it at first. But if editors of local papers all across the country keep receiving releases they will have start taking notice. It’s an effort, but if you undertake a media audit, you will be able to see how much coverage you are receiving when you do and how much it’d cost if you bought the space. The more visibility the team/sport receives in the press the easier it gets to advertise bouts and get a return on your investment, not just costs but also time. It also indirectly benefit the sport in general, raising awareness.
It wont happen overnight but a unified plan undertaken by all teams across the country would eventually create a critical mass, generating consistent coverage, raising awareness in the public, generate larger audiences and just maybe make sports editors realise it’s a sport they need to cover. In the meantime this is my mock-up of what could be.
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