Jonathan Last, one of the Galley Slaves of blogging fame has a post this morning covering gender differences in the world of sports.
…a group of quasi-professional athletes were so upset at the off-the-field comments of another player that they took it upon themselves to demand that the player be benched. And the coaching staff went along with it!I submit to you that this sort of behavior is basically unthinkable in men’s sports. (Try imagining this story in the context of an NFL team.) It shows a complete, polar-opposite understanding of competition, comradery, authority, and the importance of winning. Mind you, I’m not making any value judgments here: the women’s view may well be the morally preferable one.
But they couldn’t be more different.
Last has been writing more lately (at least when not unmasking Michael Mann’s use of mind control over Peter Berg to make The Kingdom) about the accusatory marketing push to brand women’s sports as more relevant than casual sporting fans have decided they are. It’s a trend that began with the hyper marketing push that the NBA undertook to promote the WNBA, which, sorry to say, sports fans is in fact not a broadcast outlet for all things hoop-centric.
Last is no stranger to the world of aggressive marketing and his commentary has been spot on, noting that women simply cannot compete with men on the playing field, making the Gatorade ad below look like the sad parody it is.
The intensive push to promote various sports strikes this observer of sports, culture and marketing as the proverbial square peg in a round hole. My college years were spent writing on the so-called Olympic sports, which in my time at UNC-CH included NCAA Champions in both Women’s Soccer and Field Hockey. The Women’s Soccer team had by that point achieved the cachet to swagger. Anson Dorrance had built a dynasty where the biggest headlines I ever penned were on the infrequent occasions when his team was upset. Field Hockey while not a dynastic wonder was probably the most talented collection of athletes not kicking a ball at school. Tar Heel women’s sports found their niche and their audience and respect by winning. It was promotion. It wasn’t marketing. It certainly wasn’t the fawning press coverage provided by my colleagues at the time at the Daily Tar Heel, Carolina Blue and myself. It was the Al Davis credo, “Just win, baby.”
A better strategy than the “Greatest Team You Never Heard Of” would have been to play up the representing our country in the World’s game angle. Americans love patriotic underdogs, even when they are the favorites. Drape them in flags and send them out to win. Of course, the Greatest Team We Never Heard Of took third place. Quoth the Homer, “Doh!”.
Still winning attracts fans like honey attracts flies, ants and hungry bears. But winning doesn’t help when you are trying to build and promote a league. Somebody’s gotta win, even if everybody stinks. And since somebody’s gotta win, and anybody can win, as a result, not many folks care who does win. See the XFL for reference. The XFL discovered another lesson in their brief run, made for TV teams, with risque and over the top marketing efforts don’t always catch on either.
So the formula for successful league building? Simple. Provide a quality entertainment product, with skilled competition that is promoted intelligently. Giveaways at the arena/stadium/ballpark always work. Making players accessible to fans will differentiate a league immediately, as other sports have built walls between players and fans. Free fan festivals that bring together the best players with the fans with real interaction. And in this Internet age, it doesn’t hurt to use web savvy methods, such as podcasts, blogs and other channels that provide fans (and more importantly potential fans) with access unavailable in other entertainment options. Yeah, did all that before, didn’t they? It takes time. And money. And patience. And eventually you’ll get a niche.
The market is glutted with entertainment options, and it’s likely women’s leagues like the WNBA and the once and future WUSA stand the best chance to succeed by building slowly. The WNBA which is subsidized by the NBA can afford to take their time to promote their game. The four year hiatus for the WUSA (expected to end next year) hopefully undergirds the league with the capital necessary to stick it out for the long haul.
They should be wise enough to eschew the “in-your-face” advertising that Last has noted. There is a place for talented women athletes at the table. But they won’t be able to force their way to the table. They have to earn it. And the pettiness of voting a player to the bench because she publicly lashed out at a bad coaching decision is showing fans the players that will be the centerpiece of this league are not serious about winning. A bad start, no? So’s third place.
