What would it take to get more guys....

[RavennaAl]

Here’s my take on this…..

There are 330 people signed up on the chat board, and about 200 MFCA members. That’s a 60% rate of membership. Let’s look at how to best classify the people that are here.

First is the casual observer. This is the guy who remembers electric football from when he was a kid and is interested in how it has evolved, but really doesn’t have that much interest in playing again. He comes and goes and occasionally may post something. I’m guessing he makes up 10-15% of the chat pool. We most likely don’t have any members from this group, and never will.

Then there’s the semi-serious guy who plays a few times a year, or may be in a local league. He posts on the board, but for whatever reason doesn’t want to be a member. He may have a strong interest for awhile, then looses interest and disappears, only to reappear after a few months or a year and continues this cycle. I’m guessing he is around 20-25% of the chat pool. We probably have about 10-15% of the members in this group

Then there is the serious hobbyist. He is the guy who loves this hobby more than free beer. It’s in his blood. When he dies, they’ll have to pry his figures from his hands. This is where 85-90% of the members are at. He makes up around 60-70% of the chat pool.

Right now, I’d have to say that we’re pretty much maxed out as far as members go. To get more guys signed up we need to either:

A) Get guys in the middle group more revved up about the game. I think the best chance of that is to get them at the league level, to somehow stoke the fire through the other members of their league.

Or B) Get the word out to more of America through advertisement, publicity or other forms of media such as ESPN so that we can increase the pool size. If we can quadruple the number of people on the chat board, and get 60% of the chat members signed up as members, then we will increase the MFCA membership by 400% ,

Millions of these games were sold in the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s. That means somewhere out there, millions of guys who had these games don’t know that it still exists, and many of them may still have a spark of interest in playing again if they knew about it. The other thing we need to do is get younger kids involved. I think the Boy Scouts would be a great place to start. If we could get them at the national level and introduce MF to these kids, that would be a major boost.

[allftbl]

I'm a new member and this is what I plan on doing to help promote our hobby(or get ideas from you all)......I live close to a big city and they have sports collectible,autograph,special appearances type shows 2-3 times a year plus smaller shows monthly(also toy shows).I'm wanting to set up a table with a couple of fields with teams so people can play and see the ef game.Might bring back some old memories or create some new ones!The big attraction is I'd like to invite a couple of the area coaches with their teams for whatever time they can/want,have a big board set up and have them there to show,play,answer ?'s,promote the MFCA and the game.Let people see there is different levels and leagues to this game for someone to advance in play(I'm not there........yet )or just have fun(plus a whole family of mf-ers ).Mike R. and the Rookie(Doug) have been very open and gracious to me(and a BIG THANKYOU for that )I havn't talked to them about this yet but will throw this out to any coach who might want to share this hobby.This might of been said and done already.I am just thinking of the opportunity of opening even more doors for the growth and future of the game and the MFCA.

[eflfanatic]

Very Good Idea. Hopefully the area coaches will be willing to help you with it. Here's a downloadable flyer from the MFCA that you can pass out.

http://www.miniaturefootball.com/for...ad.php?t=15865