SportDownUnder.com.au

The tennis is pulling the crowds, but struggling for TV viewers, meanwhile cricket is doing the exact opposite, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

This is an easy one to solve.

When choosing a sport to watch on TV, people look for an emotional investment that goes beyond the need to be ‘entertained’.

Most of the Australian Open coverage features non Australians and although they’re the best in the world, it’s hard to get emotionally vested in the outcome. We’ll flick to the cricket subconsciously because simply put, Australia is playing, suddenly we have someone or something to really barrack for.

So why are cricket crowds down then?

Cricket doesn’t attract new fans to games, it’s the same people every summer going through the turnstiles. It’s a mix of backyard, grade, park and retired cricketers who love the game. The problem is these people are the same people who attended the Twenty/20 Big Bash recently. And anyone who has been to a Twenty/20 game will tell you, it’s hard to go back and sit through a one day international after the fly by the seat of your pants of Twenty/20.

Cricket already knows how to capture TV eyeballs and bring people through the gates, it’s called Twenty/20. Cricket needs to tweak the packaging of Twenty/20 to meet the needs of broadcasters, advertisers, players and fans. Get the formula right and cricket won’t have to worry about crowd figures.

As for Tennis, it’s more difficult. It needs to produce more home grown talent, that we know, but it also needs more heroes and more villains, players to hate, players to love. Only then will it attract more TV viewers.

Golf Australia yesterday announced a good initiative aimed at increasing participation in the sport.

They have signed a number of ambassadors for a new campaign that will target children and young females to play the game.

The campaign includes “Tee Times” a new central booking system on the PlayGolf.com.au website that enables golfers to find and book a casual round.

Golf Australia has tapped Masterchef’s Sarah Wilson, musician Shannon Noll and media personalities James Mathison, Shelly Horton, Tony Squires and Kerri-Anne Kennerley for the initiative.

This is a great initiative by Golf Australia. Firstly, “Tee Times” will allow a number of B2B opportunities. Eg. An automotive sponsor would get the unique opportunity to offer a free round of golf to a customer if they test drive a vehicle.

And the ambassadors will help drive PR across media channels that talk to females and a younger audience. It would have been hard finding ambassadors that already play golf and are relevant to the target audiences so not a bad job.

Personally, golf is one of my favourite sports. I love the game. And so I’m pleased to see initiatives like this one. Golf Australia know what they have to do to progress the sport, the hard thing is doing it. This campaign is a great start.

Having the ability to think creatively gives you a massive advantage in the business world. So it would make sense that you should improve this skill set right?

Some people are good at numbers, others with words. And it’s the same with creativity. Some people think analytically, while others think differently!

I think it’s important to play to your natural strengths but I also believe a little creative flair is important to develop. If you disagree then think about the concept of ‘gut feel’. The most successful business people rely heavily on intuition for major decisions. This intuition is developed from the right-side of the brain.

The best way to develop the right-side of your brain is to exercise it. Just like you exercise a bicep to be stronger, you’ve got to exercise the mind to be stronger.

So what are the best exercises? A good place to start is the web where you can find games like this one. If you’ve got an iphone, look for apps like the Moron Test or Whack Pack just to name a couple. The phone apps are great. You can play with them while waiting for a meeting, waiting for a flight or sitting in a taxi. Try to use them once a day even for just 5mins. You’ll notice a dramatic increase in your ability to think creatively.

My personal favourite right-side exercise is to come up with witty one liner’s or quick fire jokes. I don’t have time to come up with these from scratch, so I use daily news items as the catalyst for a joke. I find this really gets my creative juices flowing and ideas come much quicker in the business world as a result.

Put your hand up if you like surveys? Hmm, thought so.

What if the survey will improve a blog you read, like this one? Would you consider it then?

I’ve put a link below to a survey with just eight simple questions. Any feedback is greatly appreciated guys.

NB. Please include any topics you would like me to cover relating to sports management in future posts.

CLICK HERE