Joliet Slammers president Bill Waliewski answered questions from the Herald News recently about the state of the Slammers, including mentioning that the team is, “probably 1,000 bodies a night away from making this a viable business that’s making money.” Here is the article:
There are many ways to increase the overall attendance in a given market; and increasing attendance and/or sponsorships is not the only way to achieve the true, underlying goal of these teams: profitability. Here are a few simple suggestions, most of which are free:
- Get the team’s home games on the online event calendars which syndicate/distribute the list of games to other websites, the search engines, and subscribers via e-mail & text message
- Post the games on the Craigslist calendar and other classified ad websites’ calendars (if permitted)
- Have very-easy-to-find ways for younger people to “check in” via Foursquare, Facebook, etc. These check-ins, in turn, show up on THEIR friends’ Facebook pages telling these people about the team/stadium location/etc.
- Come up with some truly fun, innovative social media campaigns which don’t cost anything. A good book on social media can provide dozens of ideas to adapt for independent baseball and increase attendance
- Get AS MANY people as possible who do show up on the team’s Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, LinkedIn, YouTube and any other lists. Then give them QUALITY content such as fun trivia, birthdays of famous baseball players, tips about where to go around town, coupons from local restaurants, etc. People will share this content with their friends, all of which has ticket information embedded in/around the content
- Improve search engine exposure for those phrases where people are looking for things to in/around the team’s city
Also take a look at the previous day’s posts about ways to increase profitability. It is not that tough as people can be persuaded to come to an independent league game if the entertainment option is more compelling than their alternatives. The Slammers and all sports teams wanting to improve profitability are welcome to contact this website for more tips and suggestions, most of which are free or low-cost and pretty easy to implement.
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