Attracting More Strong Players to the Club
Discussion Summary
Author: Mark Kaprielian
08-08-02
This document summarizes a discussion held primarily between Harvey Reed and Mark Kaprielian. Harvey had created his proposal after some discussions with Frank Sisto an area Master who has recently returned to active play.
With the success of MCC, we have a healthy growing U1700 group, with a fair amount of rotation and “newbies”. For the Expert and Master level it is a relatively static and small group.
Experts and Masters comprise only a small percentage of the chess playing population. Thus, since we do mass marketing (web, &etc) of the MCC we will see the percentages that we do today.
Increase the ranks of Expert and Master by 2-4 new people per year. This will add to the enjoyment of our current Experts and Masters, and give the U1700 crowd new targets!
We have come this far by mass marketing, and fine-tuning the sections. This combination of attracting from a broad base, and giving people excellent value has been key to our growth. We must continue these efforts.
We can do targeted marketing to the selected audience of Experts and Masters. We can do this via direct mail. However, we must offer more than extending an invitation to play at MCC. We can offer them an invitation to play in the “MCC Invitational”!
We offer an invitational once or twice a year (Spring / Fall). The Invitational has two prize bearing round robin sections – Master and Expert. 6 people in each section. 3 from MCC regulars and 3 who haven’t played ever at the MCC, or at least not in the past year. In return for modest entry fees and good prizes, the players agree to:
This will probably be a loss leader for the MCC. We can consider this an investment to keep the club vital. The new Experts and Masters will hopefully return for regular tournaments, and we invigorate the study group. With an infusion of 2 new Experts and 1 or 2 new Masters each year, we will beat the percentages of recruiting (based on mass marketing) and continue to build a great club.
I think it is a nice idea but my gut feeling, from past consideration of the topic, seems to be supported by my current analysis, which is, there isn't a big enough pool out there to go after.
I also don't think the requirements that placed on the participants are realistic to expect. If we make it past this analysis of numbers phase, I'll have much more to comment on regarding the other aspects of your proposal. Lets do the numbers first.
Using the Maca database Membership statistics as a representative base of active players in the area:
The data goes back to all those who were members within the last year
Restricting the data to just Mass players
19 |
Masters |
of which |
4 |
played at the MCC within the last year = |
21
% |
15 |
2100s |
of which |
1 |
played at the MCC within the last year = |
7 % |
28 |
2000s |
of which |
6 |
played at the MCC within the last year = |
25
% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
62 |
total |
|
|
|
|
In addition, the MCC has one 2000 player that is not listed as a Maca member.
New Demographic Maps showing distribution of players over 2000
Check the Maca site for the most current demographic
maps. No link is provided here as it
will eventually go bad.
From an observation of the demographic map
There are 21 Experts and above who live in the region bounded by Rt. 128 to Rt. 495 and Rt. 1 to Rt. 93
There are 23 Experts and above who live outside the Rt. 495 belt
Subtracting the 44 we have accounted for so far, we are left with approximately 15 within the Rt. 128 belt Boston area.
I created a spreadsheet containing the count of 2000 to 2199 players in Mass city sorted by name of city. On the spreadsheet I have done a first pass probability assignment of the likelihood of someone attending based primarily on what city he or she live in.
I used 1 % probability to indicate very unlikely and 90 % for very likely.
Using the Maca database, there are 43 people who are in the rating range and were members going back one year.
The table below shows the City distribution of the 43 players. Using the assigned probabilities, we get
12 players who might be induced to play at the MCC.
From the data above, it should be noted that we have 7 of those plus one not a Maca member.
Our absolute pool of players to entice is 43 - 7 = 36
Our probable pool of players to entice is 12 - 7 = 5
The question would
then be, how much time, effort and money should be invested to attract those
additional 5 players.
Table of probabilities assigned as mentioned earlier. |
|||
|
|
|
Calculated |
City |
CountofCity |
Mcc Probability |
People |
AMESBURY |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
AMHERST |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
BILLERICA |
1 |
40% |
0.4 |
BRIGHTON |
2 |
70% |
1.4 |
BROOKLINE |
1 |
80% |
0.8 |
BURLINGTON |
1 |
40% |
0.4 |
CAMBRIDGE |
9 |
40% |
3.6 |
CHARLESTOWN |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
CHESTNUT HILL |
2 |
80% |
1.6 |
FOXBORO |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
HOLYOKE |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
LYNN |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
MARBLEHEAD |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
MARLBOROUGH |
1 |
80% |
0.8 |
MEDWAY |
1 |
20% |
0.2 |
MILLBURY |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
NEW BEDFORD |
1 |
10% |
0.1 |
NEWBURYPORT |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
NORTH QUINCY |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
NORTON |
1 |
10% |
0.1 |
PEABODY |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
ROSLINDALE |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
SOUTH LAWRENCE |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
STONEHAM |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
STURBRIDGE |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
SWAMPSCOTT |
3 |
1% |
0.03 |
WATERTOWN |
1 |
70% |
0.7 |
WEST ROXBURY |
1 |
1% |
0.01 |
WESTON |
1 |
60% |
0.6 |
WINCHESTER |
1 |
40% |
0.4 |
WORCESTER |
1 |
60% |
0.6 |
Totals |
43 |
|
11.89 |