Recap The Court

Jacob Smith

I’m writing this from the perspective of someone who has been around OUA basketball for a decade and OUA basketball marketing for 7 years, but this will just be what the title implies, suggestions based on observations. I’ve followed along very closely with every OUA women’s basketball team’s social media over the last few years and there are a few things that are either done too much or not done enough, if at all, that when adjusted can really help grow the league, and it all starts with priorities.

First I would like to give credit to Lakehead because what i’m about to talk about, they’re been very good at, and that’s acknowledging the past and relating it to the present. We, speaking as the people in OUA basketball marketing, see a new year as a reset rather than a continuation. We put new faces on graphics, we maybe put new colours together should the school’s colours alter, but we keep the same tactics and reset for game one of the new season with a few words changed in the same templates. We simply hit a reset, insert a new schedule into the rotation of gameday posts, and go about the same calendar as the year before, not acting like we’re building on the year prior, but like we’re doing the same thing again but with a new fill in the blank in terms of team and date.

What Lakehead does when they post about their alumni, what they did when they were at Lakehead and what they do now, is what I think not enough teams do, and what can create that continuing story, rather than a rewrite of the same tale. Team rosters may completely change year to year, but what doesn’t change is the program, and leaning in to what the program was to help tell what the program is, can really create a sense of pride for new fans, and entice more of them to remain fans for years after their favourite player graduates or the coach they love moves on. Connect your fans with the players and teams of the past, show where the program has been and create a sense of pride from the fans around the history of the program they support.

Players and Coaches may leave, but the program will always be there, and I feel like the story of the school’s program is told as starting in September of one year and ending in May of the next, when really it has been going on for most often decades. We focus on the short term while desiring the long term benefits, and even in the short term, there is more we could be doing to help ourselves, which brings me to my second suggestion, there’s more to a team than games.

From what i’ve observed, one of the most important objectives for any school’s marketing, is ticket sales and overall income. From that, a majority of posts are around games, whether that’s Game Day posts, or photos from the game posted afterwards, or posts promoting ticket sales, and while numbers may be getting met, there is so much that is left to the side which can grow that at a much faster rate.

For my first example, I looked at one OUA women’s basketball team’s instagram page, and I looked at every post made from the end of their preseason until the end of their season, over the 2023-2024 year. I looked for every post containing the word “ticket/tickets” and every post detailing how to get tickets or where to go to get tickets. What I found was just five posts containing the word “ticket/tickets”, with just one saying how to get tickets and where to go. A post as simple as “we play on this date, get your tickets here” can be put out very regularly on social media feeds, and I feel like it’s approached like people who are there will already know games are played and where they can get tickets, and that isn’t, in my opinion, providing the easiest way for new fans who may not know anything about the league or the team, to feel in the loop, and stick around.

This second example is because of what i’ve personally heard from fans across the OUA, and that’s talking about the players off the court. Fans in any sport or league want to feel connected, and an easy way to sell tickets and get fans attached and following along, is to give them a storyline to follow along with. Selling tickets based on team performance can be a very flux situation, with tickets for a great team selling a lot easier than tickets for a not great team. Giving fans a connection that isn’t team performance, is a very important baseline to have steady support regardless of how the team is doing or other outside factors.

Getting a teams fans to know about the players they see every week on the court, as students and not just players on a roster. Getting the students to relate to the players who are in the same program or same classes, as them, getting the parents to feel a sense of “i was once in their shoes”, getting the overall community to feel pride and want to support the hard working student athletes who represent their local school, building a connection between the fans and the people on the team, is really important and something I don’t see many teams do often, from the team’s accounts, not the school’s. Whether it’s get to know a certain player posts, like Windsor and a couple others do, or account takeovers like the Queen’s Women’s Basketball team does, growing that connection between the fans and the players outside of what they see on the court, builds a sense of community and connection that fosters more mutual support, growing ticket sales and word of mouth marketing.

We all want OUA basketball to grow, and we ask for external support, yet from an internal perspective, there is so much more that can be easily done to put us in a better position. Things that require little cost but more dedication are seemingly put at the bottom of the list to make space for short repeatable things that bring short term benefits, and instead of steady growth, we see a focus on finding adjusted ways to reach the same bar year after year. There are so many things we can do more of from within to help ourselves, and I hope this piece sheds some light on opportunities I feel aren’t taken advantage of enough.