Sports Accord

[esskreemr]

This sounds like a great place to start the ball rolling on what sponsers want to see as well as gaining valuable potential contacts.

Perhaps Roche should stop holding pointless Executive Committee meetings on how best to destroy foil fencing, and start to actively promote the sports to potential sponsers.

From the list of delegates attending, I saw no mention of the FIE or the USFA or any other fencing organization. I don't understand how the FIE prefers idiotic and dangerous rule changes over following the formulas established by commercially viable sports (sports that produce a tremendous revenue flow through sponsorship and media presence). If we want to grow the sport, we neet to attach our roots (even if small at first) into the money pipeline. That more than anything the FIE dictates, will help keep Fencing an Olympic Sport.

Main URL:
http://www.sportaccord.com/

Delegate list:
http://www.sportaccord.com/vsite/vfi...-0-file,00.pdf

SportAccord, the annual international sports convention, brings representatives from the 100 International Sports Federations affiliated to GAISF (General Association of International Sports Federations), ASOIF (Association of Summer Olympic International Federations) and AIOWF (Association of the International Olympic Winter Sports Federations), as well as the International Olympic Committee Executive Board, together with sponsors, architects, sports lawyers, broadcasters and other specialists to discuss the key issues facing the sports industry.

[Larrison]

Dude, you're dead on with this..

I'm always a bit surprized there aren't some better corporate-type sponsorships for fencing in the US. We've got a flashy sport, with a long history of style and coolness, and one in which the US is starting to make some moves into international medal contention. But.. as near as I can figure out, 90+% of the sponsorships are from dedicated fencing vendors. (And I'm curious -- who were the sponsors, if any, at the Sacramento Nationals, just completed? And I mean, other than the vendors?)

I think part of the reason we don't see more sponsorship is that the sport is opague to sponsors in the US -- that is, no one sees the people doing the sport, and there isn't any way for a sponsor to help sell product (which is the reason for sponsorship) other than to the people already in fencing. Hence, you get only sponsors who are dedicated fencing vendors.

I made a suggestion that one of the things the USFA could do is to put a little bit of money and effort to encouraging the elite level fencers to visit all the local USFA- affiliated clubs with an eye to generating publicity for the sport. The idea is to have the local newspapers run an article on "Olympic medalist visits local fencing club", or "Local competition attracts olympic hopefuls" or the like. You'll need to coordinate publicity (someone from the national office probably) plus the local clubs, and have the "name" fencer cooperate as well.

What makes this valuable is that it gives a way for a larger national or international level sponsor to put their name and product out to a larger audience. Such as "Coke sponsors training tour for next generational gold medalists", or "HP Smart Digital Cameras fast enough to capture Gold Medalist Smart" etc... Having a national level sponsor show up at such an event and hand out minor items such as posters (fencer+ sponsor logo), or minor trinkets (something like a Fencing figures from Mattel, or just a key chain with the sponsors logo on the back and 2005 Fencing on the front). Even buy just handing out posters at a high school assembly, they get public exposure for sponsoring a cool sport, they get publicity associated with it, and a good image boost from supporting the sport. With a little bit of thought, I think you could build up a fairly effective message strategy between Fencing's history, Olympic level competition, "one on one competition" and high intellectual and physical levels required.

This is valuable to the sponsor (through publicity and image to increase sales), valuable to the national level sport (increased financing and support for the elite fencers), and valuable to the local level clubs and participants (publicity and hopefully more fencers into the sport). With higher local interest, you can get more involvement from sponsors and you'll see more interest in putting fencing on TV and other media. In the longer term (5-10 years) this can produce both a better and stronger US national fencing community, with substantially increased resources to support international-level fencing, as well as attracting more participants to the sport giving a larger pool of quality fencers to increase the standing of the US fencing in the world.

[Be_Like_Water]

Evidently the FIE wants to allow fencing to "just be" and by the supernatural powers the sport posesses the general public is to, one day, wake up and realize what they have been missing all of their lives--at which point the audience booms 3000%. Perhaps the smarter idea is to follow the suggestions on this thread. But that is entirely too practical for the FIE...

[smohrle]

You know....also another group could be the sports drinks and "power" bars...gatorade, luna, power bar, cliff bar, etc...etc...

I don't that about this sport either.....you would think a national (USFA) organization would be able to figure it out.

[Sword Mistress]

Perhaps the smarter idea is to follow the suggestions on this thread. But that is entirely too practical for the FIE...

could not be stated more truly...

[cfaustus]

Some great suggestions!

I have also recently seen other great suggestions elsewhere on this forum about grassroots fencing publicity/movement such as putting an add in Escrime opposing the new changes. We have enough people here to coordinate something really cool. If the FIE and USFA won't do it what's stopping us? Maybe Craig would agree to collect funds for special projects and we could have a board here who decides on projects and then gets the ball rolling. I would be happy to do what I can.. anyone else? Craig? what do you think?

[noahz]

Evidently the FIE wants to allow fencing to "just be" and by the supernatural powers the sport posesses the general public is to, one day, wake up and realize what they have been missing all of their lives--at which point the audience booms 3000%.

From what I understand, over the last few years the FIE has taken several measured steps to make Fencing more TV friendly. I heard that the reason they moved the World Championships to October was so they wouldn't conflict with Euro Soccer TV programming. And, there exists an independent commission whose sole task is to make sure that World Championships is produced at a level suitable for television broadcast (i.e. score and time clearly visible, etc.)

Finally, my understanding is that starting next season all masks at will World Cup events will have to have the transparent visor. As with the requirement for wireless scoring in saber, this move was also taken to improve Fencing's television appeal.

While the effectiveness of this move is certainly debatable, I can offer the following annectdote which seems to support the FIE: Ivan Lee informed me that following Athens, he has had more than one person recognize him on the street from the blue-tinted glasses he wore while fencing (several of his bouts having been broadcast on Bravo). Had he been wearing the mesh-only masks, it is unlikely these television viewers would have remembered him as distinctly.

So, while I'm not saying the FIE's actions have been foolproof, to write that they've done absolutely nothing seems like hyperbole.

[OROD]

From what I understand, over the last few years the FIE has taken several measured steps to make Fencing more TV friendly. I heard that the reason they moved the World Championships to October was so they wouldn't conflict with Euro Soccer TV programming. And, there exists an independent commission whose sole task is to make sure that World Championships is produced at a level suitable for television broadcast (i.e. score and time clearly visible, etc.)

Finally, my understanding is that starting next season all masks at will World Cup events will have to have the transparent visor. As with the requirement for wireless scoring in saber, this move was also taken to improve Fencing's television appeal.

While the effectiveness of this move is certainly debatable, I can offer the following annectdote which seems to support the FIE: Ivan Lee informed me that following Athens, he has had more than one person recognize him on the street from the blue-tinted glasses he wore while fencing (several of his bouts having been broadcast on Bravo). Had he been wearing the mesh-only masks, it is unlikely these television viewers would have remembered him as distinctly.

So, while I'm not saying the FIE's actions have been foolproof, to write that they've done absolutely nothing seems like hyperbole.

I think it would be great to have transparent masks, and not just a little strip, I mean the whole front part. It would be nice to have the better vision and I agree it would make for a more TV friendly sport. The big problems right now are the technical ones. For one thing it hasnt really been proven that the current partially transparent masks are safe. Also, they tend to scratch badly over time, so you have to replace parts of it as significant cost.


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[Be_Like_Water]

From what I understand, over the last few years the FIE has taken several measured steps to make Fencing more TV friendly. I heard that the reason they moved the World Championships to October was so they wouldn't conflict with Euro Soccer TV programming. And, there exists an independent commission whose sole task is to make sure that World Championships is produced at a level suitable for television broadcast (i.e. score and time clearly visible, etc.)

Finally, my understanding is that starting next season all masks at will World Cup events will have to have the transparent visor. As with the requirement for wireless scoring in saber, this move was also taken to improve Fencing's television appeal.

While the effectiveness of this move is certainly debatable, I can offer the following annectdote which seems to support the FIE: Ivan Lee informed me that following Athens, he has had more than one person recognize him on the street from the blue-tinted glasses he wore while fencing (several of his bouts having been broadcast on Bravo). Had he been wearing the mesh-only masks, it is unlikely these television viewers would have remembered him as distinctly.

So, while I'm not saying the FIE's actions have been foolproof, to write that they've done absolutely nothing seems like hyperbole.

Yes, a very good point; what I was saying is that the FIE persists in internally changing fencing in order that spectators might stumble accross it and be interested rather than change the publicity for it. For the Olympics, for example, a LOT of people watched fencing for the first time ever--not necessarily because it was more "tv friendly" because they wore the wireless stuff, but because fencing is cool. It's just that most people don't know about it. It seems passive aggressive to keep making these minescule changes in target area or timing or off-target lights BEFORE first attempting to publicize the sport as is.

Perhaps they've done that and I'm not aware of it...