Making the best of the off season

So in rodeo, as in all other sports, you encounter off-seasons. This time is when it becomes hard to market the sport, but really there is a way to get around it.

One of the main goals of public relations is to make sure that people know your brand and what you stand for. One good way to keep your name out there is to promote a big event coming on later in the year. For a really huge scale event it is never too early to begin promotion. The National Finals Rodeo sells out pretty much as soon as tickets go on sale, and the PBR Finals are promoted all year long. These events happen in November and December and the promotion for the next year begins as soon as the current year ends. An off- season break is a great time to make another huge push at major events such as those. Again, the point is to keep your brand in the minds of your audience.

Another method that I have seen recently in use by the PBR is athlete features. This is a good time to do in-depth features on the athletes fans watch week in and week out. This is also a good way to get the media to keep the sport in their minds as well. With the athlete features you can pitch them easy to local papers near the athletes hometown. Local newspapers love coverage on their citizens and successes they come across. Also if you are so lucky to have an athlete who has a truly extraordinary story, you might even be able to get national coverage as a human-interest piece. The PBR just did a piece on a rider who is both a full-time bull rider and full-time college student. I personally as a college student love to hear stories about how people can succeed like that. I see it as an inspiration to strive and do better with my remaining time in college. It mentioned that he recently had to get an extension on a speech for his business class because a bull riding accident recently caused him to have his jaw wired shut. He ended up having to do this speech at the same time as the National Collegiate Finals Rodeo. By the end he had placed in the Finals and earned an A on his speech. This is true inspiration for college students that college town papers would love to run as inspiration to students while possibly tapping into a new audience of fans.

Just because the events may have come to a temporary end with the off-season, that is no excuse to take it easy on the public relations. I believe, as do many other experts in the world of PR do, that public relations needs to be proactive, meaning making things happen, not waiting for something to happen.