Weekly Rollup and Open Thread, 2/5/2010
WFTDA.com puts up the Featured Skater and Featured League for February -- Boston's Shellby Shattered and the Texas Rollergirls.
The most effective way to get something done is to create a Facebook petition, so we're excited that there's one to get flat track roller derby in the 2011 Summer X-Games.
Looking for a derby coach for your next boot camp? Pitchit of Tucson's Dry Heat Derby has put together a useful contact list for a number of the most experienced derby travelers.
Chicagonow.com writer Elliott Serrano has interviews with two big names from Windy City Rollers, getting good wide-ranging talks with Tequila Mockingbird and Kola Loka.
Have you ever looked at 2188 photographs in under 3 minutes? Axle Adams, the DNN reader's choice for Best Derby Photographer 2009, puts together a very fast slideshow from Rat City's recent season opener. Not recommended for the epilepsy prone.
Snark factory DerbyHelper.com is back after a January hiatus, and currently features the most metal bout poster you ever did see.
Finally, another season-highlight reel, this one from Gotham Girls and featuring home team action along with some video from bouts against Boston and Rat City skaters:
Got a funny, interesting, intriguing or just weird link for next Friday's Open Thread? Let us know.
Comments
To help Tequila
as always
http://www.helptequila.com/
Loving these weekend rollups!
This week I particularly loved the manic Rat City slideshow and that epic Nashville poster.
I don't know how the rest of the mid-Atlantic is faring but in southern Appalachia we're getting popped with our third big-ass snowstorm in two months.
Keeping my fingers crossed that the various bouts scheduled across the region are still a go, and that everyone makes it safely there and back!
SDDD on ESPN
ESPN had a blip in The Magazine about how someone from San Diego Derby Dolls and how she works out at home, by keeping her skates on for everything. There's also a video on the ESPN website.
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4876931
Revised Derby 101 promo
Due to music licensing issues (well, honestly, the complete lack of them) I've revised the Derby 101 promo with licensed music (which is not cheap). Both to test the feel of the new music for the actual series, and because YouTube keeps turning off the audio on the unlicensed version. So...it's a whole new version.
While I was at it, I updated the number of leagues and participants in the opening montage. If you have a link to it, please revise it. Updated DNN's Derby 101 Promo can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqkJvANB5KQ
Is roller derby more of a winter sport?
On the ride to San Diego, one of our group had a theory. He thought that roller derby might be more of a winter sport as far as fans and attendance go.
The theory goes like this: roller derby is an indoor sport. During the late spring to early fall, when people attend sporting events, they want to be outdoors. When it gets cold out, people want to go out, they want to go to something indoors. They'll put up with football, because it's football, but outside of that, not so much.
I think there might be some validity to that, but both of us have a SoCal view of things, and a lot of the time SoCal views of things aren't representative of the way other parts of the country view things. For one thing, we think 50 degrees is COLD. Even people who move here from snowy places think that after a year or two. For another, we think 65% humidity when it's hot out is "muggy", and during the summer, people don't seek indoor air conditioned environments to escape the oppressive heat.
What brought this discussion on is the large attendance numbers we're seeing in Chicago and Minnesota and other places right now, as well as the local games here selling out fairly fast. During the summer, sell outs are harder to achieve. Is that true elsewhere?
DATA LOSS
Well, we've never had a home bout between May and October, because Minnesotans have so little time outside when it's nice that we have to see the sun and grass when we can.
The Roy Wilkins Auditorium is just down the hall from the Xcel Energy Center, home of the Minnesota Wild NHL team, which had another sellout game last night (~18,000), so it was even more impressive to see that many people make it through the full parking ramps and gridlocked streets to get into the Roy. I feel bad for the ~300 people turned away at the door after spending $10-15 to park downtown.
venue limitations
On the ride to San Diego, one of our group had a theory. He thought that roller derby might be more of a winter sport as far as fans and attendance go.
I don't doubt that's true. The limitations for our league (and many others) is that when you depend on hockey arenas for your venues, you have to do it when the ice is out (typically mid to late April to Mid to late August/Sept). We have an old arena that is no longer iced so we have it year round, but I'm still trying to warm up after our 3 hour practice in what HAD to be --7C or colder in there and there is no way people would pay to sit in the freezing cold. Well, hard-core fans might I suppose.
It would be nice though to be able to have a little more down time in the summer months and kick it in the winter.
Lippy
Amen to that Lippy
I am looking forward to the day that Hammer City can kick it in the Winter! We may have a winter venue in our future though!
Scheduling two step
It can get tricky sharing a space with a hockey team, but if a venue has concerts year round then they'll likely have a way to cover the ice. Skatecourt works really well over Homasote. We share a space with the Indiana Ice to our benefit.
The awesome people of Naptown want to be in the great outdoors during the warmer months, and our attendance verifies this season after season. I don't have the numbers for our bout this past weekend yet, but the crowd looked pretty large. I think I can say at least 3,000 people showed up. Our attendance dropped off in January, but there was another game going on downtown at the same time. Something about the AFC championship... Anyhoo, I'm calling that night an outlier.
And at the risk of high jacking the thread I'd like to throw big props out to the Memphis Hustlin' Rollers for braving the Midwestern version of the Snowpacolypse. Y'all are hard core.
Most of the bigger arenas
Most of the bigger arenas around here do year round events when hockey isn't happening and they cover the ice, so it's doable. First we have to get enough funds to buy some sport court! Maybe one day. We're still babies here in Ontario and having attendance in the thousands is still a way off I think (although London's Forest City Derby Girls seems to really draw a crowd, I think they had 1000+ when we played them last).
Lippy
Seasonal, or transient?
I think we should be careful drawing conclusions about seasonal attendance patterns based on a very brief observation of a single trend (attendance is up in the past few weeks). The phenomenon can be attributed just as readily to the impact of Whip It, which appeared only briefly in theaters (just after the end of most league's season), but arrived on DVD and Blu-Ray two weeks ago.
Only way we'll know for sure is if some leagues collect "what prompted you to attend" data. On a side note, WFTDA is gathering that kind of information right now via an online survey - the information will be very helpful to the growth of the sport, so please encourage your league's fans to participate!
WARNING: Marketing Buzzword
Yes, Minnesota/Twin Cities are a strange mix of luck, opportunity, and demographics. But one thing that can be said for MNRG's and NSRG's attendance numbers is that they are organic. They both started with small numbers and have grown to the levels they're at now. I seriously doubt that Whip It had any appreciable impact on either league's attendance. If anything the leagues had an impact on how many locals went to see the movie.
But one thing that you can tell about the market is that if it wasn't freezing cold and bitterly drab around us, then we wouldn't get as many butts in the seats. When we've had abnormally warm days in the spring games, attendance goes down.
About ten bucks per seat, a space you don't need to wear a coat, and a few hours of entertainment is something Minnesotans can get behind. If you can be outside in the thawing wilderness without a coat, that ten bucks and confined space seems like you're prolonging cabin fever.
I like Minnesota's derby fans... they're a savvy lot. But above all else they're pragmatic. And we love 'em for it.
I think it depends...
We've kicked around the idea of doing winter bouts, using the same theory. However, the Mid-Atlantic basically shuts down when there's snowy weather; in Minnesota they are used to it and don't have a problem coming out when there's snow on the ground. I've lived in Jersey, Delaware, Southern NY, and Eastern Pennsylvania and the whole operation shuts down at the sight of snow. We lost out having to cancel a scrimmage this weekend due to the 2 feet of snow, and it probably would have still been canceled if we only got a fraction of that. I can't imagine the losses incurred if we'd had a bout scheduled!
Attendance-wise we do best in the Spring and Fall, so now our home season is pretty much split in half to avoid the summer months. It's certainly not ideal from a marketing standpoint, but it works.
-cuervo
Dutchland (Lancaster, PA)