Growing the Hobby!

[5-13 Studios]

Mmmmm, Model T's are far too collectible and cool to people. I know what you're saying though, Bruce. I just think that it may be more along the lines of the AMC Pacer, rather than the Model T. There is a lot of truth, however, in what you say about a massive overhaul of the image of the hobby. It happened with Dungeons and Dragons, it has happened with many of the classic board games that we grew up with. They were all revamped and modernized, while keeping the integrity of the original game intact.

What Mark Robin says has truth to it as well, a lot of the hobby-type shop goers are not football geeks.

I don't have much as far as answers, I just think that at times, we tend to want to rely on the "nostalgia" of the game to bring people back who use to play, rather than paying enough attention to "modernizing" the game, to bring the new players in.

[Megawattz]

Originally Posted by 5-13 Studios

Mmmmm, Model T's are far too collectible and cool to people. I know what you're saying though, Bruce. I just think that it may be more along the lines of the AMC Pacer, rather than the Model T. There is a lot of truth, however, in what you say about a massive overhaul of the image of the hobby. It happened with Dungeons and Dragons, it has happened with many of the classic board games that we grew up with. They were all revamped and modernized, while keeping the integrity of the original game intact.

What Mark Robin says has truth to it as well, a lot of the hobby-type shop goers are not football geeks.

I don't have much as far as answers, I just think that at times, we tend to want to rely on the "nostalgia" of the game to bring people back who use to play, rather than paying enough attention to "modernizing" the game, to bring the new players in.

Thats all im sayin! not so much who, but why & how. the ? why is the one where everybody has to support for it to grow. here we go again.

[mantaraydre]

FIRST OFF,

megawatz hit the nail on the head. WE MUST MOVE FOWARD !
History may mean a lot to us who were there back then and to those who are just curious. But if you want a new coach who just cares about playing football, history is not his top priority. i have said this several times in the past. WE LIVE IN A WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY WORLD.
Those flowers you brought your loved ones wont last a month. Let alone be remembered in 3. Must keep the ef relationship alive with constant doing and renewing.

STYLE AND STYLES.

Imagine you cut on the tv AND ON EVERY CHANNEL THERE IS A FOOTBALL GAME. You watch part of a game and switch channels . On every channel they are playing a different style of the game. Eventually you will be confused as to what your watching. THAT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE IN THIS HOBBY.

**THE MFCA AS AN ASSOCIATION MUST DEVELOP 1 UNIVERSAL STYLE THAT IS PLAYED ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. Where someone like the french guy to mike pratt have the EXACT SAME RULESET AND UNDERSTANDS IT 1 BILLION PERCENT. Once that is understood, only then can the MFCA begin AN ENTIRE NEW MARKETING SCHEME.

From there, that 1 particular style will be promoted throughout as the OFFICIAL RULES of the MFCA. This ruleset must be placed in a main category on the MFCA website AND ALL OTHER LEAGUES AND RULES BE PLACED IN A SEPARATE SUB CATEGORY.

The MFCA must make the transition to promoting its own rules and creating al league a little different than the MFCAL.

I think the MFCA should create a page here like the pages on leaguedaddy with a quite different chatboard than what we have here. ALTHOUGH THE CHATBOARD WE HAVE IN PLACE WILL REMAIN THE SAME OFCOURSE.

TEAMS

what is killing us as a whole is the dependance on creating NFL and college teams. With that said, there will always be a roadblock in terms of serious promotion due to fear the NFL or NCAA will terminate our operation.

Madden has the kids. the NFL has madden. WE CANT CRACK THAT RIGHT NOW. WE MUST STAND ON OUR OWN AND SHOW THE WORLD WE CAN DO SOME THING ALSO. But it seems no one can break away from the NFL EXPERIENCE EXCEPT THE national high voltage league. What must be understood, we create our own, we market our own. You already have the figures and bases, YOU CANT MAKE YOUR OWN TEAM ? coaches have nine thousand ideas on how rules should be but you cant think of a team to make that you can call your own ?

Look at the canadian league, look at the arena football league. MAKE YOUR OWN TEAM. Each team can be the

1)MFCA YOUR TEAM NAME

2)MFCA YOUR TEAM NAME.

EACH TEAM WILL BE BILLED LIKE THIS.

Until all of this is done, then we can create videos, flyers and other promo adds. We must start a nationwide campaign with flyers and posters to promote our league and assoc. The campaign can take us many places like
a presidential campaign. WE MUST TARGET THE SPORTS BARS IN EVERY REGION WITH FLYERS. WE CAN PAY A SMALL FEE FOR SOME OF THE SMALLER ONES TO HANG POSTER ADDS IN THERE WINDOW.

Sports bars are jammed packed every weekend with die hard football fans.
Madden has 90% of the kids attention who ilk football. WE MUST CATER TO THE FOOTBALL FAN OUR AGES.

It all works hand and hand but it will never fly until we create our own INDENTITY. Wouldn't it be a lot more personal if you created your own team. Football will not be less if it is not an NFL team. The canadians are quite happy with there league. I saw the NFL NETWORK will show some canadian games this week.

***You will always have our other leagues and NFL/NCAA TEAMS. BUT THE MFCA MUST MAKE THE TRANSITION INTO FLYING ON THERE OWN.

What is the reason you will not create your own team ?
ALSO, PLEASE STOP SAYING FANTASY TEAMS. I DONT SEE ANYBODY DAYDREAMING. THIS IS REALITY AS WE KNOW IT.
Where is the fantasy if you actually make the team.
If i fantasized about going out with pam anderson on monday and went out with her on friday. IS IT STILL A FANTASY OR DID IT HAPPEN ?


MAKE YOUR TEAM SO WE CAN GET TO WORK

MANTARAYDRE

[texastimetraveler]

The wargaming community is the way to go I'm telling you. I have personally introduced the hobby to many by demoing with Reg. at wargaming conventions. Most all the attendees are amazed at our hobby. Some have even gotten involved.

I just saw this >>>> Awsome >>>>

[the french guy]

Remember were competing with video games, unlike when we were young

I'm not sure we really compete with these. See people playing roleplaying games, or tabletop wargames : they can play the same games on a PC or console. But they still play with real persons, figures, etc...

Playing tabletop wargames demands involvement (learning complex rules), money (building the armies) and time (painting figures and creating landscape). So I believe that MF is not a "ready to play out of the box" game is not such a big issue.

the games that are played in comic book stores and board game stores usually dont have people that were interested in football.

that is an issue If people is the same in USA than Europe (and I believe, we're significantly the same). Someones knows that I'm hardly trying to build a league an "in real life" interest for MF here in France.

I remember one guy, playing a fantasy (orcs, gobelins, elves, etc...) tabletop football game, saying me (more or less) "I don't understand the interest to play a game with normal athletes when I can play dragons and vampires". I answered : "why people are playing WW2 wargames or build model railroad ? There is not dragons too". The guy agreed, but stills not interested in our game.

Then, I tried to touch football audience (people on football forums, etc...) : they think the game is interesting and beautiful, but since they are interested in sports and not at all modelling or tabletop gaming, they don't want to give a try.

The wargaming community is the way to go I'm telling you. I have personally introduced the hobby to many by demoing with Reg. at wargaming conventions. Most all the attendees are amazed at our hobby. Some have even gotten involved.

I still think we'll find more people, probably not the younger, in wargaming world. I recently found a guy here in France, in my aera, playing pirates tabletop games (!), and a lot of other things (creating figures, scenery, slotcars, resin, etc...). I have to meet him in the next weeks. If he 's hooked by the game, believe me you'll be impressed by his talent


WHy "probably not the younger" ? Because as I said, I believe we're all the same. I played rugby when I was a teenager, then I grow up and sport interest became embarassing. I started to meet other people, playing role playing game, listening heavy metal and stop to cut my hair

But now, with some the same friends I had, we meet to see rugby games, or even football games (season opening, superbowl, etc...).


The youngest in wargaming are also often "hooked" by a wargame brand, and will not watch out other ones. Then, growing up, they will play more "underground" games (pirates, uchrony, etc...), or more serious games (historical games).

What is the reason you will not create your own team ?
ALSO, PLEASE STOP SAYING FANTASY TEAMS. I DONT SEE ANYBODY DAYDREAMING. THIS IS REALITY AS WE KNOW IT.

Funny you're speaking about that. I had the same thinking recently. My Giants team will probably the last NFL team I'll do for me. The next ones will be fantasy (meaning my own team, my own franchise, etc...) or french elite football oriented.



edit : last thing : when you demo to wargamers, use passing simulation instead of ttqb. BELIEVE ME, as a former wargamer and totally beginner, real passing is something wich can annihilate your efforts

Passing sticks are very similar to wargamer rulers. Making wargaming people more confortable.

[artlax]

Originally Posted by texastimetraveler

The wargaming community is the way to go I'm telling you. I have personally introduced the hobby to many by demoing with Reg. at wargaming conventions. Most all the attendees are amazed at our hobby. Some have even gotten involved.

I just saw this >>>> Awsome >>>>

why I started this thread. The Toy Wiz has huge wargaming tables and there are always guys there - who build and paint their armies.
Heck last year when Mike Robertson was up - he and Brian Healey even got some painting lessons from one of the guys.

And outside of the Wiz I have mentioned and demonstrated the game to a number of real football fanatics - no follow-up interest. And btw - start-up does not have to be expensive - unfortunately the custom stuff is.

Again I ask - have you guys had any real success in any way attracting and keeping new guys using any of the mentioned approaches?

[detroitchild]

As one of the people working to start up the MFCA Marketing committee, I find this thread very interesting. From what I've read so far there are several lines of thought....who is our target audience? How do we introduce them to the hobby? Once introduced, how do we keep them, etc.?

I believe that one of the things we have to do is approach this from a non profit/business perspective and develop a marketing strategy. The first part of that strategy is to determine who our market is. I've seen several types mentioned in my 2 and a half years on this forum but have we seriously tried to determine who they are? I do know that they fall into at least 3 catagories. 1) Those that play, 2) Those that create (customizers, painters, decalers, etc.) and 3) Collectors. Many of us fall into all three BUT it may take a different strategy for any one of them.

We also have to look at the age groups that we may want to attract. Most of us fall into the 35-55 age range (I know some fall over or under but I'm just giving my best guess here). We have also discussed getting youth involved. What age range would that be? We have to understand that it may required a different strategy for each age group.

Nostalgia may bring in one type of person. New and improved may bring in another. How do you craft a strategy to appeal to both. Should that strategy be passive or aggressive. For instance, some of you said several people stopped to watch you guys play. Some asked questions but very few if any seriously followed up with the hobby. I'd consider setting up to allow others to watch you play a fantastic idea but lends itself to be a passive mode of advertising. Was there anything setup to appeal to any of the 3 groups mentioned earlier (players, customizers, collectors)? It may have been a more aggressive form if you had another board setup to allow those watching to run a few plays. Perhaps some brochures promoting both your league AND MFCA to hand out. If you are trying to sell/market something and you have a crowd standing there you NEVER let them walk away empty handed. Also, did you guys have any banners or posters up with pertinent information on them. I know all the above is hard to do when you are playing league games and are in the heat of battle but the question was asked and required a response.

And this is just a fraction of what we have to consider for a marketing strategy.

Your thoughts?

[Megawattz]

First off the MFCA is all of us, for some reason those with the most to gain would rather keep there part of the pie rather than adding to the whole, we need to get everybody on the same page in some way, if not only to support the effort. Too many times threads like this startup then by page three we have the "usual suspects" with the influence derail the the train before it gets moving. Don has a point, as an advertising major showing the same old stuff gets the same results, meaning we have to change the game from 50's hobby to 2000's version of table top football while keeping the history intact as just that history. The game is lacking credibility, it has to be repackaged as a serious game for serious gamers. As far as target audience, this is still football, football inthusiast are the only audience, u may get 1or2 guys from other hobbies but thats about it, right people wrong hobby, just my thoughts I may be wrong on that. As far as equipment, the hobby took a big loss when miggle lost its license to sell affordable prepainted teams, we need a way to fill the gap, left in there absence, with that said theres no way to replace the history, loyalty or love for NFL or collegiate teams, made up teams are nice but u will never replace that. However I can help with this effort let me know.

[Geno H]

I dont know all the answers by any means. But it seems to me our target age will remain 35-55 yr old men that like football. My reasons are as follows. From 20-35 you get married,have a family & work hard at your career. After those 15 yrs ( from 20 to 35) your kids are older, your job is going well and most likely you have a little more coin in your pocket. Physically you cant do the things you used too but still love football. This is the niche that Mini Football fills. We can all wish for grander things. But in my opinion THAT is the target group we should pursue.

JUST MY OPINION.

Geno H

[Treks1]

A complicated question and a good topic for discussion.

I still believe we need a stardardized set of rules. Everyone loves their own rules but are we willing to make a sacrifice and compromise for the benefit of the hobby? If we all start playing the game in the same way and the same rules and terms, they will become familiar to the public AT LARGE. Also think we need a standard weight limit, or maybe weight classes (3.2 and 4.0).

Also think we do need some brand recognition. Andre and others have been dead on by saying that in some way we need to get away from the NFL/NCAA..... We should develop MFCA teams and yes, an MFCA league...

The counrty is divided up into regions. Perhaps each region could come up with 3-4 teams each, design the Team names, jerseys.. Again, the the public AT LARGE to become familiar with the MFCA brand.

We have a rules committee and I think we need to start pushing this and in some way, to develop the MFCA Brand an presenting more of a UNIFIED hobby. I do think we have been on the right track with what I would consider great conventions, The Tweak, the web site and forum, Point challenge, DVDs, commercials and live broadcast. We just need to be organized, have a game plan, execute the plan and keep moving forward.