From our forums…
The recent crap coverage of the Sydney to Hobart, the non – existent PR for the Volvo visit to Melbourne, the continued drop in participation……all highlight the complete failure of our sport to market itself…..starting with the appalling lack of anything aspirational in terms of video. Sure we have vid of extreme stuff taking place in remote parts of the globe – from Volvo and Vendee to Americas Cup – but that’s completely inaccessible and consequently pretty irrelevant.
Where is the video that tells the stories of the weekend warriors – the people who turn up each week to sail at their club with mates – the camaraderie, the prep, the thrill of the start line, the tactical decision making and execution…and the social de-brief after the race over a few beverages?
We have the technology – and Drones are a game changer – what we lack is imaginative narrative .
Our sport has so many stories to tell at so many levels – despite the drawbacks of cost and time, there are so many positives….but we, as a group, have (almost) completely failed to tell them.
It’s a sad indictment that our best advocate is Sailor Girl – an (and my apologies here Nic – cos I LOVE what you do!) enthusiastic under resourced amateur/semi-pro.
What can we do about this? Well lets start by putting some resource into marketing our sport (Internally for a start!!) – Here’s link to a local sailor/film maker who did this as a school project(!!!) Imagine what he’s capable of if given the chance to do a real S2H backgrounder and coverage! This is a dinghy story – but it could just as easily be a weekend warrior keelboat story….there are so many positive stories to tell – but we need to start telling them. Video is the medium!
Thanks to Anarchist Outa. Jump in to comment.
