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Frisbee,
Korfball, and the World Indoor Cricket Federation.
Did
you know they play Lawn Bowls in Argentina, and the governing
body for the sport there is the Federacion Argentina De Bowls?
And did you know that they also play in Brunei, with the Lawn
Bowls Association part of the Youth
& Sports Dept, Ministry of Culture?
Did you know that the Secretary General of the Netball Association
of Lesotho is Makhotso Semakale?
Did you know that New Zealand finished 1999 ranked second in the
World Crocquet ratings, behind England and ahead of Australia
and the United States? And that the first World Champion was Joe
Hogan of New Zealand, who achieved that honour in 1988 at the
age of 31?
What about the email address of the Czech Republic's Flying Disc
(aka Frisbee) Association? The schedule for the 2002 International
Orienteering Federation's World Cup? And what about that International
Korfball Federation? Imagine, publishing officially endorsed and
internationally accepted rules to all its 35 National Federations
- on the 'net.
I have to confess here ... I didn't know any of the above either,
until about 40 minutes ago. But it was easy to find out ... I
just did a search on "world <insert sport here>",
and lo and behold, I found the world governing bodies for each
of the sports above.
Now, the important thing here isn't the actual information above,
although as a sports fan I find much of it fascinating. No, the
important thing here is that each of the sports above (and countless
others most of us have never heard of) has its own world governing
body. Online. Accessible to fans and supporters. With details
of world championships (like our own World Cup), details of the
sport's history, and in most cases, a lot of space and effort
put into promoting the respective sports and giving them a professional
public presence on the 'net.
And note .... they are not all what you'd call 'mainstream' sports.
But they are attempting to expand and develop - reading the sponsorship
deals the International Croquet Federation gained for their last
World Championships, I'd say some of them are outstandingly successful.
But don't bother doing a search for "world indoor cricket"
... well, you can if you like, but you'll only end up back here
:-) Ask the right people and you'll be told there is indeed a
World Cricket Federation. And if you want to know what they do
.... ummm ... who do you call? Well, seeing as there's no-one
else around to answer, we'll tell you - the WICF is responsible
for the holding of each of the Indoor Cricket World Cups. Amongst
other things we assume.
That doesn't mean they don't do other wondrous work. I mean, who
knows?
But
let's just imagine you were a potential supplier of sponsorship
(and I mean serious sponsorship) and knew your stuff, what
would you first do? Well, this is what you should do ....
research the demographic of the game's players and fans based
on the geographical configuration of same (I would have liked
to have been able to add here "including the demographics
of those that visit the relevant website" . . . but you see
the dilemma - even after his death, Joe Heller's Catch-22 still
finds plenty of currency). But back to reality - If that matched
the research you'd done on your products' market, you'd then
research the location, amount and tone of press coverage of the
sport over the past 12 months. If that was satisfactory, it's
time to look for evidence of the sport's professional approach
to promotion, and evidence of a steadily increasing uptake. After
that you'd look to the sport's governing body, check out their
organisational structure, development plan, and their growth/expansion
philosophy. After all that, you'd sit down and decide if you really
want to entrust bucket-loads of your money to that body for the
privilege of having your company's name associated with that sport.
If you're a nationally based sponsor, you'd be looking at the
national indoor cricket body in the country of your choice. But
what if you were an international company? What if you wanted
international (or more correctly, multi-national) exposure. The
World Cup? Yes! Okay, first stop would be the international body
for the sport, right?. Well, in theory, yes.
Now,
can you see which particular blind-alley we're heading into? Well,
despite writing a whole heap more on the current situation re:
the WICF, we can take a breath and have a rest at this point.
It just might be the case that this particular blind-alley is
about to open up . . . .
Talk from South Africa is that the national bodies actually met
and discussed the very situation we're talking about. That is,
the World Indoor Cricket Federation may just be on the verge of
'outing' itself. There's even whispered talk of a web-page.
In
anticipation of this proving correct, we would like to be on record
as the first to sincerely congratulate those responsible for the
initiative, and the first to enthusiastically welcome and endorse
it. Regular readers can rest assured however that we will not
let our pleasure at this move cloud Soapbox's judgement and/or
our expectation of the WICF. In other words, Soapbox will continue
to sprout ours and readers' opinions, offer advice (for what it's
worth) and dish out brickbats and bouquets as we and our readers
see fit. In fact, we're inspired to start right now -
It
is hoped the WICF engage the services of a truly committed webmaster,
set up a system where information is reported promptly and accurately,
have open communication channels between its component parts -
whatever is necessary to ensure the website always reflects favourably
on the organisation it purports to represent. There is no gloss
in the associations people form between an organisation (for arguments
sake let's say - a national indoor cricket body) and what is perceived
to be that national body's web-site, and the same will of course
apply to the WICF and its website. The WICF, by paying full attention
to this little bit of advice, would then be able to avoid being
considered negatively (through perhaps no fault of their own),
by association with any failings of their website. For example
(and we know this is stretching the imagination a bit, but who
knows, it just possibly could happen), the situation
could arise where a full week after a tournament has concluded
(for arguments' sake let's call that tournament the World Cup)
there were still notes on the website proclaiming the publishing
of the best players of that recent tournament would be announced
at the conclusion of the tournament. Fanciful we know, but anything
is possible . . . .
And
because this is our website and we can, we're going to
offer one more piece of advice -
A visitor to our site, Barbara, described another aspect of websites
in words we couldn't match. She wrote "There is a misconception
that web sites have to be fancy, providing incredible graphics,
videos, etc. etc. Simple text communciation is enough and I congratulate
you on that". An important and highly relevant observation,
and one many would do well to have written boldly across their
keyboards.
Anyway,
let's hope there's more definite news on this development soon
- we've got a pretty neat article already written, announcing
the launching of the WICF's site and wishing them well. We've
also got the links planned and ready to be featured prominently
throughout our site - it's just a matter of waiting now.
Genethoi.
Indoor
Cricket World
28th October
2000
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