One of the issues that faces anyone who promotes footy in the US or Canada is the question of a marketing strategy. Given what a great product it is, it's my experience that if you can expose people to the sport and give them a bit of information about the sport, it sells itself. So formulating a strategy shouldn't be rocket science. What is the AFL's strategy then?
Beats me.
AFANA has asked questions about the AFL strategy since our inception. We've never received really good answers. So far as we can tell it is limited to the following two things:
Not much of a strategy. First, it leaves organizations such as USFooty, who do a great job, trying to both form a working competition and youth programs or divert money to pay for broad based marketing. Second, it raises the question of what the purpose of the TV programs really are. Third, it leaves the fans and AFANA out of the picture entirely.
On the second item, you can again ask yourself these questions about the TV programs:
Whichever choice(s) you make would result in much different Highlights program (for example) and fit very differently into a marketing strategy for the sport. Another place this comes into play is how you portray the sport. If you want to recruit youth, you probably need to de-emphasize the physicality of the sport. If you want to draw audiences, then (maybe) you do the reverse and go head to head with sports such as rugby and professional wrestling.
One of the correspondents in our survey asked why there isn't more advertising for the sport, (both elsewhere in the US media and on FOX Sports World), outside of when the two programs are actually on the air. As for FOX Sports World that is just their myopic view of footy, in my opinion. On the former, we are back again to the marketing strategy issue.
It's also critical to recognize that marketing nationally in the US is very different than marketing in Australia. And Canada is different than the USA. Population distributions are different. Competing sports are different. Demographics are different. The TV business and media regulatory environments are different.
Anyone who wants to formulate a strategy for growing Australian football as a sport in either the US or Canada should ask themselves this question: If I was going to try to sell Widgets in Japan whom would I seek out for advice? An Australian or a Japanese businessperson? I'm betting 90% of you said the latter. So, it would make sense for the AFL to seek out US and Canadian natives with marketing and TV knowledge to advise them over here.
AFANA gets no AFL funding for what we do. (Read that again in case you don't understand!) All of our funds are raised from memberships, web site advertising, and sales commissions on merchandise. After seven plus years though, we have individuals in AFANA with lots of experience about what works and what doesn't when it comes to selling footy in the US and Canada. We also have loads of knowledge about the TV business.
On several occasions, most recently between the 2001 and 2002 seasons, we made offers to the AFL that we would help them formulate and execute a marketing strategy. What we asked, in financial terms, was frankly a pittance. We never so much as received a polite letter turning down our offer.
So, if you are frustrated about what is not occurring to promote footy on this side of the Pacific, the answer (or lack thereof) to that is located on the other side.
-Rob (who rues the wasted opportunities in pushing the sport!)
Posted by rkdesantos at September 12, 2003 02:36 PM
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