Priming the Pump
November 28, 2014
Today and tomorrow bring an end to the MHSAA’s fall tournament season that, overall, experienced the worst weather I’ve witnessed in my 29 years of watching our fall events. We are grateful to those hearty fans who followed their favorites through wind, rain, ice and snow.
The MHSAA’s “bread and butter” is its season-ending tournaments. Try as we might to diversify our revenue, all our non-tournament revenue sources combined continue to account for less than 15¢ of every $1 the MHSAA generates. Sponsorships, broadcast rights fees and officials registration fees make a contribution to our enterprise; but the MHSAA operates without membership dues, fines and tournament entry fees.
That leaves gate receipts (ticket sales) as the largest (by far!) source of revenue; and it’s the football and basketball tournaments that pay the way for the many tournaments that the MHSAA operates at a financial loss (we call it an investment).
Because of this narrow flow of revenue, I asked a team of MHSAA staff to take a comprehensive look at the MHSAA’s marketing of its tournaments. Over a series of energetic meetings, these imaginative staff members have compiled a list of ideas to promote MHSAA tournaments by better using existing means and opening up new avenues to generate interest and increase spectator support.
The MHSAA Representative Council will soon vet and vote on a wide variety of ideas generated by our in-house task force. The objectives are a growing customer base enjoying an improved customer experience.
Sounds of Silence
April 12, 2015
I write in the early morning hours for the same reason birds sing then – it’s quiet. Birds can hear their voices, and I can hear my thoughts.
It is during the uncontested moments of the day that I can try out ideas – test them on paper. Yes, on paper! My most creative and productive process still employs a legal pad, a pencil and an eraser. The physical process of writing the words, looking at them, and often erasing what doesn’t make sense to my mind or sound right to my ear as I read it aloud.
The task of written communication has become more difficult during the four decades I’ve been engaged in this enterprise. While the work has become more complex and requires more nuanced discussion, the space available for careful comment has been reduced. Pretending cleverness or profundity, texts and tweets often do more harm than good to promote creative and productive discourse.
I am rarely provided the luxury of long-form journalism in this modern age. Even a “feature” article in a prestigious national professional journal is expected to be less than 1,500 words.
Modern scribes must boil down complicated matters to brief blogs like this one, hoping in a few short paragraphs to share an insight worth reading and to suggest a response worth doing.
The insight here? Silence is golden.
The suggested response? Seek a solitary space to describe and defend what it is that you hear in that silence.