Club Fit Summer Basketball Leagues (Week Four Discussion)

This summer, I worked at Club Fit in Jefferson Valley, New York as the Assistant Director of Basketball Operations. My job is to coordinate all aspects of Club Fit’s summer basketball leagues for men, women, and children. Last summer, Club Fit was unable to host the summer leagues. In previous years, the leagues were booming and competitive, especially the men’s league which included 15 teams. In the spring, Club Fit made the decision to bring back the summer basketball leagues, but this was not an easy task. With the summer leagues’ starting date only weeks away, no teams had signed up. In the past, Club Fit would advertise the basketball summer leagues through monthly newsletters sent out during the fall and winter months. This way by the spring, there would already be multiple teams signed up for each league. Since Club Fit made the decision in the spring to bring back the basketball summer leagues, we were scrambling to find people interested in putting together their own teams and playing summer league basketball. 

In order to find people interested in Club Fit’s summer basketball leagues, we had to determine who would have a specific interest in this organization. Luckily, we still had contact information on file of those who played summer league basketball at Club Fit in years past. For the purpose of this discussion post, I will refer to this group of men as the “veterans.”

The Veterans: 

• between the ages of 30-55

• have played in the summer league in years past

• “weekend warriors”

• less active on social media

• heard about the summer league through monthly newsletters and word of mouth

Most people that we contacted said that since they did not think Club Fit would be having a summer league this year, they had already committed to playing in a basketball summer league elsewhere. Fortunately, we were able to find two people from previous years who agreed to put their own teams together and join the league. Still, two teams are certainly not enough for a full league. This is where we had to determine another persona that would be interested in playing summer league basketball. On Sunday mornings, there is a group of young men who play pick-up basketball at Club Fit. I immediately thought of them and asked if they would like to put teams together and play in the league. For the purpose of this discussion post, I will refer to these young men as the “rookies” because they have never played in the Club Fit basketball league before and they are also younger than the men who have traditionally played in this league. 

The Rookies:

• between the ages of 18-30

• younger than men who traditionally play in the summer league

• have never played in the summer league

• play basketball on the weekends 

• active on social media

Among the rookies, they were able to form two more teams. We combined the veteran and the rookie teams to form one league. This summer we had a total of only four teams in one men’s league. We once had three different leagues including the men’s league with 15 teams, but late advertising and poor planning hurt our chances of having a big summer league program.  In preparation for next summer, it is critical that we, as an organization, develop a goal for the Club Fit basketball summer league. “For most corporations, the most important goal is profitable revenue growth. In newer companies and those built around emerging technologies, this usually means generating new customers, but in mature businesses, the management team may need to be more focused on keeping the customers that they already have” (Scott, 2013). One important step we need to take is that we need to advertise the leagues earlier. This will ensure that we will have players returning from last year, and also have new players sign up. One thing I noticed about Club Fit’s social media pages is that the organization is not very active. I believe that if we were to advertise the basketball summer leagues on Club Fit’s Facebook page, more people, especially the rookies would notice and sign up to play. I feel that it is beneficial to use social media platforms such as Facebook to reach this younger demographic. For the older men playing in the league, Club Fit could continue to advertise the basketball summer league in its monthly newsletters that are sent through the mail. Again, sending them out earlier in the fall and winter would allow people more time to join the league. 

With two different personas and proper planned advertising through social media outlets and weekly newsletters, I believe that we can have a more successful summer league basketball program at Club Fit. 

Reference:

Scott. "How the Web Has Changed the Rules of Marketing and PR."The New Rules of Marketing and PR. 4th ed. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2013. 13,15,16,18,22. Print.