How to increase the visual appeal of women’s basketball and how to market it using web 2.0 tools – these are the issues that are very actual today in women’s basketball and highly need to be solved.
What to do?
What general managers of women’s basketball teams should do?
The e-book consists of two parts. The first part (where my ideas are expressed), is about how to increase the visual appeal of women’s basketball.
The second part, where the major contribution is from my co-author Linas Šimonis consists of defining the winning marketing strategy of women’s basketball and the tactics of how to make the strategy work using the web 2.0 tools.
This e-book’s purpose is to show to clubs and national team managers the missed opportunities in promotion of women’s basketball and to prompt to action to exploit them. These actions lie not in expensive promotions, but on the contrary, they will help to earn more money – money from advertisers, sponsors, from selling more tickets.
The point is when you will start the changes in your team’s marketing. Teams, that started these changes right now in the next season can have the first results. Teams, waiting a couple of years, will achieve the results couple years later. Or even more later, because first movers will have the biggest attention of media, fans, sponsors.
In fact, this e-book can be also useful to all other women’s sports managers. And some ideas, especially from the second part could be applied by men’s sports as well.
We hope that it will be a useful handbook and that at least one idea of this plan will be implemented by club or national team. So, press on the link of The 2 Marketing Steps Every Women’s Basketball Team Should Make, download and read it. Do not forget to write a review here! Thank you!
Have you ever asked yourself a question of what is the most important in professional basketball clothing?
Are the design and colour of clothing important? “Of course!” you will say.
And the material the clothing is made of? “No doubt!” you would say.
Are the model and silhouette also important? Yes, if you care about your look!
What about the size of clothing? Hm…mmm…Here you go…
Unfortunately it seems more complicated in everyday life.
Probably you have met such terms in clothing manufacturing as “ready-to-wear” (made in a factory in accordance with standard sizes), “made to measure” (made in a factory applying standard drafts in accordance with your personalsize and desirable changes of the model) or “bespoke” (individually made in accordance with the drafts made pursuant to your measurements and your specific requirements). Most people do not know these terms or keep mixing them.
How do you choose new clothing?
Usually you go to the shop. Then you choose two or three sizes, which could fit into your measurements, of the model that you like. Then you go to a fitting room and try to fit into one of them. It is great if you are lucky and you choose something. If you are a little bit non-standard, you have to choose: to take the clothing and to mend it or to leave it. It happens very often that you cannot find the right size of the clothing.
And what do you do if you have clothes sewn individually?
Then you go to a studio or to a private dressmaker, for example. He measures specific parts of your body (depending on what you want to order). You agree upon the model, materials, other details and the most important (!), you agree upon fitting. Exactly – upon fitting which is crucial for the product sewn individually! And you agree upon more than one time for fitting, possibly two or three times depending on the product that you have ordered.
Where’s “where the shoe pinches”?
For some reason nobody remembers the process of choosing the clothing in the shop. However, if the individual ordered clothing is bought, everybody wants to get a ready and ideally fitting product right away without any fittings. There is a belief that if the dressmaker has body measurements, it should not be a problem to make clothing which fits well right away.
However, I have to disappoint you. If you have a slinky item of clothing made for you, it is problematic to make it without fitting. It is possible if the clothing is of “baggy” style. Also there are certain conditions. We must not forget that people are built differently: pot-bellied, fat, normal-built, athletic and skinny. It is difficult to make even clothing is of “baggy” style for pot-bellied people.
The ways to choose the size of sports clothing
How do the club or team managers select the sports clothing usually? They fit clothing to some standard-built players. Then they know what sizes to order. It should be remembered that different manufacturers may mark clothing of different sizes by the same mark, for example “XL”. They offer no more than four sizes (even only three sizes for women) which have to be adjusted. Thus, do not make a mistake and do not swear the manufacturers, if something is wrong. They may follow different standards applied in various countries. Also, attention should be paid to the silhouette of the clothing that you order: tight, slinky or free. Clothing of these different silhouettes shall be marked by the same label of “XL” size. Another way is to order more clothing of various sizes to avoid “non-fitting”. In such a case you spend more money. The third way is to order “made to measure” sports clothes and to expect that the manufacturer shall fit to make the clothing for you.
How can you do it without fitting?
First of all you should provide the manufacturer with as much information as you can – provide more measurements than usual. Then, what silhouette of clothing you expect and what silhouette you would like to have? Should the upper part of the clothing be of one size and the lower of another, etc. The more information you provide for the manager of orders about clothing “of your dreams”, the more precise your order will be (without fitting). Even then the clothing may be not exactly of what you have expected. Especially, if it is of tight or slinky silhouette. It is very important if the manufacturer agrees to fix it.
Can innovations help?
Thanks to the latest 3D computer technologies there are other ways to “make” virtual clothing in accordance with the desired measurements without any fittings. In such a case the client is measured not in a usual way but using the scanner. The measurements are transferred directly to the computer program. When the client is satisfied with the design and silhouette of the clothing and the virtual item fits good on a virtual model the “live” product is cut and sewn.
Of course, these technologies are not perfect enough. The author of this text had a chance to make sure of that. Although the producers of the latest technologies state that time for manufacture of clothing and materials could be saved, a lot of additional things are necessary to get a perfect result (I mean the ready product corresponding exactly to the designed virtual model). For example, if the characteristics of the materials are not exactly determined (additional testing of the materials should be made in laboratories), the product shall not correspond to the size and fitting on the body. And I am not talking about improperly “sewn” virtual seams or incorrect selection of gap between the upper and lower item of clothing.
How can you choose the best way to determine the size?
If you want to have exceptional sports clothing, explain all details of the vision of your clothing to the representatives of the manufacturer. Of course, to those who work in such way. However, there are very little of them.
Pay special attention to the silhouette that you desire and, of course, to the description of your body shape. It is even better, if you have a possibility to come for fitting! You should come because this would ensure that your product complies with the requirements of “made to measure” manufacturing and suits you.
When a former basketball player, captain of women basketball national team – former Champions of Lithuania and Europe, now employed as the Second coach for Lithuanian national women team, Dalia Kurtinaitienė told me that women seek beauty even during struggles for awards and “put mascaras or other beauty products every time they get on the [...]
Olympic Games stand for the highest sports achievements and winnings of the athletes as well as are some kind of sports fashion demonstration. To some purpose the largest (and some smaller) sports industry companies “lay” huge funds to the newest technologies of sports products and their design in order to “glow” with exclusiveness in the [...]
