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| danzfamily.com |
There are some people who are so good at marketing that they could sell surf boards to Eskimos. On the flip side, there are some people who are so bad at marketing that they couldn't even sell a gallon of water to a farmer in a desert.
Here in Evansville, we don't need a top notch marketer to understand what it takes to sell Roberts Stadium and our ball fields project to the locals, those in our region, and those living outside of our general vicinity. Yet time after time our city leaders have failed to incorporate the basic fabric of Evansville's competitive advantages into a plan for Roberts Stadium or our ball fields project. What are they missing and what can we do to incorporate these characteristics?
Evansville is in the heart of Hoosier Hysteria & Kentucky Bluegrass Basketball
Evansville has been given a gift like no other with Roberts Stadium. Both the arena's history as well as its location can be huge marketing tools for the city if properly utilized.
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| MGM DVD |
The saddest part about this whole Roberts Stadium debate is that if our local leaders really and truly understood what role this venue has played in the history of Indiana basketball demolition wouldn't have ever been an option. Very few people know that Roberts Stadium is the biggest arena designed by Evansville architect Ralph Legeman. They also don't know that Legeman owns the patent for the fieldhouse design which he acquired in 1956. Because of Legeman...
- Indiana has 12 of the 15 largest high school gymnasiums in the country, including 9 out of the top 10.
- Indiana has the largest gymnasium- New Castle Fieldhouse- for which Legeman was the architect of. Today the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame is located next to it.
- Indiana basketball is now known as Hoosier Hysteria because of the enormous gymnasiums Legeman built. Indiana's passion for basketball was already observed and written about by basketball's inventor, James Naismith. In 1925, Naismith visited an Indiana basketball state finals game along with 15,000 screaming fans and later wrote, that while it was invented in Massachusetts, "basketball really had its origin in Indiana, which remains the center of the sport." Legeman took Indiana basketball to the level it is today.
- Bankers Life Fieldhouse, formerly Conseco Fieldhouse, serves as the home to the NBA's Indiana Pacers and pays tribute to the fieldhouses that were designed by Legeman in the state of Indiana.
It's no secret that basketball is king in the state of Indiana, and Evansville native & Roberts Stadium architect Ralph Legeman played a huge role in this. It's also no secret that basketball is a way of life in the state of Kentucky as well.
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| Photo Credit: Ryan Clark |
The "Sweet Sixteen" in Kentucky high school basketball is one of the most legendary tournaments in the country and even inspired the NCAA to name the 3rd round of their tournament the "Sweet Sixteen."
Kentucky's love for the game of basketball has carried over to the college level as well where the Universities of Louisville and Kentucky consistently rank in the top 5/10 in attendance each year during NCAA basketball season.
The state is home to UK which is the NCAA's all-time winningest program and U of L which is the NCAA's most profitable basketball program.
Amazingly enough, Roberts Stadium is centered right in the middle of this basketball border war...
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| Graphic By Michael Roberts |
How can we take advantage of this competitive advantage?
It makes absolutely no sense to tear down an arena that is located in the heart of basketball country and was built by one of the greatest architects in basketball arena history. Furthermore, it makes no sense not to schedule high school basketball games, tournaments, and classics at Roberts Stadium due to the new NCAA rule prohibiting these events from taking place at Division 1 home courts such as the Ford Center.
To go with our high school basketball games, there is an ample amount of college basketball teams who would love to schedule preseason and postseason tournaments at Roberts Stadium, most notably USI who would help us bring back the GLVC Tournament due to the arena having a lower cost structure. These tournaments would consist of both local residents as well as out-of-town tourists who would do what the ECVB is wanting us to do- put heads in beds.
One of the main tenants that I want to see at Roberts Stadium is the NBDL (National Basketball Developmental League). We are watching too many cities that are smaller than us get a team while we are left in the cold because we don't have a mid-sized arena to attract one. The NBDL features players who have played at Indiana, Purdue, Notre Dame, Kentucky, Louisville, Western Kentucky, and many other local universities that attract fan interest. However, Shy Ely, a graduate of UE, would be the biggest draw for NBDL games.
Couple high school basketball games, college basketball games, and NBDL basketball games together and you've got enough activity to keep Roberts Stadium functionally solvent. But when you add BMX tournaments, mid-sized concerts, indoor lacrosse, Evansville Rage indoor football, in-line skating, and youth sports tournaments, you have an arena that will continue to reap huge rewards for the city of Evansville both directly with its revenue and indirectly with hotel night rentals.
But what about our baseball competitive advantage?
Although Evansville is not on the border of two devout baseball states like it is basketball, it is still in the middle of baseball country. To the west of us, we have the St. Louis Cardinals owners of 11 World Series Titles. To the east of us, we have the Cincinnati Reds who were the home to the legendary "Big Red Machine" back in the 1970's. And to the north, we have the Chicago Cubs who have called historic Wrigley Field home for almost 100 years. We also have White Sox, Braves, Royals, and Tigers fans scattered through out our city due to the proximity to their teams.
| flickr.com member NotreDameIrish |
Even better is the fact that Evansville is the home to the third oldest active ballpark- Bosse Field- which moved up a notch in 2008 with the demolition of Tiger Stadium. Not only is Bosse Field the third oldest active ballpark, it was one of the main sites where the film, "A League of Their Own" was filmed. This film was so successful in marketing Evansville that you can now find a poster of it in the ECVB headquarters even today. If that isn't a big enough competitive advantage, Bosse Field is also located in Garvin Park which is the home to Don Mattingly's youth baseball field (yellow circle)...
How do we take advantage of these competitive advantages?
Like Roberts Stadium, we DO NOT need to reinvent the wheel nor do we need to do anything that hasn't already been done before.
We've seen Aberdeen, Maryland take advantage of their town being the hometown of MLB great Cal Ripken Jr. by working with Cal on building Ripken Academy. We've also seen Cooperstown, NY take advantage of their rich baseball history by building their ball fields close to their historic ballpark and the MLB Hall of Fame. Lastly, we are now watching Dyersville, IA take advantage of being the host site to the film "Film of Dreams" by building their ball fields next to the site of the movie.
Evansville is in an extremely unique position in the fact that Bosse Field has all three of the above characteristics in one area. Therefore, the logical step is to build your ball fields there especially given the other facts that the central location is best for all sides of town and the neighborhood is in dire need of an economic stimulus.
Building the ball fields to replicate vintage MLB ball fields, like the organization Big League Dreams does, will reinforce all of these characteristics into the ball fields complex itself. From there, we can take advantage of having Bob Walthers' Golf-N-Fun next door for party activities that accompany ball field development projects. We can also use Bosse Field on Otters off days to play championship games so that girls softball can play on the same site as the film "A League of Their Own" and the Otters can increase revenue on off days. This will be critical once the city decides they want to revisit the downtown ballpark idea once more.
In Summary
I've tried to understand why the ECVB and our past city leaders want us to believe that a baseball project on basketball land while leaving a golf driving range on baseball land and not on golf land at Hamilton Golf Course is a good idea. But in the end, I just don't understand ANY of it.
I know I will probably never get the answers to these questions, but I will keep asking them until they get answered. If we can't sell basketball at Roberts Stadium to Hoosiers and Kentuckians, and if we can't sell baseball to those around Bosse Field on North Main Street, WHAT CAN WE SELL?
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| ashwinikhadkikar.com |
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