Agreed. However, why do the OG have to be the be all and end all of competition. Sure, to us it is, but to the general public, the USATF Championships can hold the same weight... and its better because they are held every year too. We CAN market Adam Goucher and Tim Broe as the next great thing on US soil and they ARE going to be doing it on the last lap at the US Championships. We need to get people (including the athletes) into the domestic aspects of the sport. Then once we have a huge fan base here, and top athletes that can legitimately compete with the world's best, we can begin to market international competition. One follows the other. As it becomes a bigger sport in the US we will have more kids participate and train harder, making better runners that can compete internationally. Its cyclical, and in my opinion, it starts with getting the public interested by marketing these guys as winners of the US Champs and possessors of American Records. I'm not saying lie to the American people... but at this point I feel as though it is more beneficial and more exciting for them to think of our sport as a US thing... not an international one. Market it as such, and guys like Adam Goucher suddenly become super stars and Matt Lane that one guy just on the fringe.
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >CC: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Re: t-and-f: USATF Advertising idea... >Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 15:23:24 EST > >Kurt touches on an important point - in other sports marketing a >personality works because, for the most part, the personalities end up >competing for whatever title is up for grabs. Tiger would not be Tiger with >a long series of 10th place finishes. > >Right now marketing Adam Goucher or Tim Broe is a poor investment because >when it comes to OG or WC they ain't gonna be doin' it come the last lap. > >Marketing a foreign personality in the US has not worked all that well >because Americans love to see Americans win. Thus we get all of the focus >on the events the Americans traditionally do well in or in >an event you can label such as the decathlon or heptathlon. > >Steve S > > > ><2. However (there is always a "however"), Marketing focusing personalities >has it's pitfalls. Remember the "Dan and Dave" ad campaign from 1992? It >worked magnificently in terms of getting these guys some name recognition >leading up to the Barcelona OG. But the whole thing quickly turned into a >laughing stock when Dan no-heighted at the trials and whole premise of the >ads promptly turned into ashes. > >A Broe vs. Gaucher ad campaign could crater just as easily when one of them >doesn't live up to the hype in some way. And the whole thing could turn >into an even bigger laughing stock when Broe and Gaucher do their best but >end up finishing in 11th and 12th place in the big showdown race (OG or >whatever) behind a big flock of north and east Africans. People are gonna >say "What was that all about?".> > _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
