Marketing mistake
Credit:
This weekend marks a missed opportunity for the League of Ireland. For the first time in 2011 the foreign leagues which generally attract so many Irish viewers on a weekly basis aren’t distractions. But instead of marketing the product in a bid to lure new fans through the gates it has been decided instead to relegate it to last night. Ireland's clubs and flagship competition find themselves playing second fiddle and facilitating the meeting of Wales and Northern Ireland at what presumably will be a near empty Aviva Stadium in a tournament that has failed to live up to hype.
Sport is a marketer’s dream. Few exploit this better than corporations who invest significantly in sport sponsorship but even they are put in the ha’penny place by satellite broadcasters. It’s intriguing to watch how they combine to hype beyond belief each of their upcoming events. They have a gift for making you feel that it will be the experience that will define your interaction with sport. You somehow manage to navigate that particularly stressful Smashing Saturday or Significantly Special Sunday only to realise there’s a Helicopter This or Survival That to make you sweat in the coming days.
Every available moment makes way for a advertisement with shots of various protagonists at battle with edits so quick it resembles a scene from Black Hawk Down. Couple this with a booming soundtrack and screaming voiceover which serve to make you believe that there is no event on the planet that will come close to challenging this particular one in terms of where your attention should be.
Then comes the controlled comedown. I assure you once the Champions League Final is played tomorrow we’ll be dragged into a world of sepia coloured promos aiding us in mourning the lack of live soccer over the summer bar the occasional pre-season tournament, emotional testimonial or an underage championship that will be covered and promoted on a scale similar to last year’s World Cup.
Most fans of the league will know of soccer fans that live in ignorance of what is going on in grounds around the country on a weekly basis. Fans who consider what they see on television as real football and what goes on away from the glare of Sky or ESPN as the poor relation. I’m not going to suggest that the League of Ireland is on a par with the English Premier League or La Liga but if such opportunistic marketing of sport is the norm in a market at such close quarters how is it we’ve come to operate in an environment where we seem reluctant to have a collective marketing campaign to sell our league. Clubs operate in a confined market and have to be lauded for the work they do in reaching out to their catchment areas to promote themselves.
Why is it though that the powers that be or the backers of the league have failed this season in putting together a coherent campaign to see the league as an entity across Ireland? Surely it is time and would be beneficial to resurrect a campaign similar to the Real Fans, Real Football one rolled out by the FAI two seasons ago. We have plenty to be proud of, some quality players to promote and some great talkers and characters within the domestic scene that would be only too happy to sell our sport. What harm can it do to construct a campaign, perhaps tongue in cheek, to point out to people mourning the supposed lack of football over the close season that it is a misnomer?
The Nations Cup is a fantastic idea and in principle should provide a fine spectacle. However, in its current format it will almost certainly fall victim to a number of challenges most notably the growing decline in stature of non-competitive international football. This is evident again in the scale of withdrawals from all four squads made more frustrating by some of the weak excuses put forward by players for not being able to travel. Some of the lack of interest is understandable, unlike the Republic the North, Wales and Scotland have no end of season qualifiers to prepare for so this is little more than an inconvenience. Throw in too that all four managers and associations are dealing with growing apathy amongst supporters brought about qualifying campaigns that are already dead rubbers, unpopular tactics and changes in management.
The model set to be used by the Dublin Super Cup in July might serve as a better template for the Nations Cup. Play two games in one day, make it a spectacle of football, get the big names on board and sell it based on a festival of football. It might provide a challenge for stewarding and security but surely would serve better than having pictures of 3,000 fans in a 51,000 beamed around the world. Put that in context, fewer fans turned up to see Wales and Scotland on Wednesday than is attracted by Shamrock Rovers in Tallaght on a regular basis. The total number of fans who attend Premier Division games on a Friday night would probably challenge the total attendance that watched the meeting of the Republic and the North on Tuesday yet the Nations Cup is marketed as the only show in town. It’s all about perception.
Sport is a marketer’s dream. Few exploit this better than corporations who invest significantly in sport sponsorship but even they are put in the ha’penny place by satellite broadcasters. It’s intriguing to watch how they combine to hype beyond belief each of their upcoming events. They have a gift for making you feel that it will be the experience that will define your interaction with sport. You somehow manage to navigate that particularly stressful Smashing Saturday or Significantly Special Sunday only to realise there’s a Helicopter This or Survival That to make you sweat in the coming days.
Every available moment makes way for a advertisement with shots of various protagonists at battle with edits so quick it resembles a scene from Black Hawk Down. Couple this with a booming soundtrack and screaming voiceover which serve to make you believe that there is no event on the planet that will come close to challenging this particular one in terms of where your attention should be.
Then comes the controlled comedown. I assure you once the Champions League Final is played tomorrow we’ll be dragged into a world of sepia coloured promos aiding us in mourning the lack of live soccer over the summer bar the occasional pre-season tournament, emotional testimonial or an underage championship that will be covered and promoted on a scale similar to last year’s World Cup.
Most fans of the league will know of soccer fans that live in ignorance of what is going on in grounds around the country on a weekly basis. Fans who consider what they see on television as real football and what goes on away from the glare of Sky or ESPN as the poor relation. I’m not going to suggest that the League of Ireland is on a par with the English Premier League or La Liga but if such opportunistic marketing of sport is the norm in a market at such close quarters how is it we’ve come to operate in an environment where we seem reluctant to have a collective marketing campaign to sell our league. Clubs operate in a confined market and have to be lauded for the work they do in reaching out to their catchment areas to promote themselves.
Why is it though that the powers that be or the backers of the league have failed this season in putting together a coherent campaign to see the league as an entity across Ireland? Surely it is time and would be beneficial to resurrect a campaign similar to the Real Fans, Real Football one rolled out by the FAI two seasons ago. We have plenty to be proud of, some quality players to promote and some great talkers and characters within the domestic scene that would be only too happy to sell our sport. What harm can it do to construct a campaign, perhaps tongue in cheek, to point out to people mourning the supposed lack of football over the close season that it is a misnomer?
The Nations Cup is a fantastic idea and in principle should provide a fine spectacle. However, in its current format it will almost certainly fall victim to a number of challenges most notably the growing decline in stature of non-competitive international football. This is evident again in the scale of withdrawals from all four squads made more frustrating by some of the weak excuses put forward by players for not being able to travel. Some of the lack of interest is understandable, unlike the Republic the North, Wales and Scotland have no end of season qualifiers to prepare for so this is little more than an inconvenience. Throw in too that all four managers and associations are dealing with growing apathy amongst supporters brought about qualifying campaigns that are already dead rubbers, unpopular tactics and changes in management.
The model set to be used by the Dublin Super Cup in July might serve as a better template for the Nations Cup. Play two games in one day, make it a spectacle of football, get the big names on board and sell it based on a festival of football. It might provide a challenge for stewarding and security but surely would serve better than having pictures of 3,000 fans in a 51,000 beamed around the world. Put that in context, fewer fans turned up to see Wales and Scotland on Wednesday than is attracted by Shamrock Rovers in Tallaght on a regular basis. The total number of fans who attend Premier Division games on a Friday night would probably challenge the total attendance that watched the meeting of the Republic and the North on Tuesday yet the Nations Cup is marketed as the only show in town. It’s all about perception.
