Cheer and Win

Traditions... rituals are key to any brand. The trick is to establish the tradition. The NFL has had the Pro Bowl for ever and while the NFL brand is wildly popular the Pro Bowl has never take off. For 2010 the game was cleverly slotted in the pre-Super Bowl dead time and the ratings improved dramatically whether this will build the Pro Bowl as a real brand. Sometimes, however, a brand does not having the strength to stand on its own.

Florida International University is still in the process of building a football brand, a football tradition. Think of why you went to a you football game as a freshman. It was the thing to do. The group in the dorm was going and going along was the thing to do. Now imagine that there was no group carrying you along getting you in the habit; no tradition.

FIU has therefore come up with a plan of priming the pump of tradition by offering $500 scholarships to student attending games this fall. While this is an interesting incentive there is more to creating a college football fan tradition than just getting bodies in the stands.

More Than You Know

Unless you've done the job you really do not understand the issues, hassles, and headache involved. Few jobs are a walk in the park and often the pay is in direct proportion to the energy, time, talent, and expertise. Such is the case for setting up a college football schedule for a team. A recent DevilsDigest.com interview of Mark Brand, Arizona State Associate Athletic Director give some insight into the difficulties involved in setting up an OOC schedule in college football.

Telling is the central player in scheduling. The Boy in Bristol--ESPN

Non-conference scheduling has its challenges

“Schedules are changing so much, so quickly there is no one out there who can keep up with it. The reason ESPN has that site is because they are very active in scheduling TV games for ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, etc. So it behooves them to know what schools are doing so they can look at schedules, know who is playing whom and set up TV games and maybe even set up made-for-TV matchups.

Made-for-TV matchups is the same as Match Making by Mickey.