- how the placement has further inspired them to study the subject
- what the placement has taught them about the subject that they have applied to study (this could be specific knowledge or more general insight)
- how the placement has helped to demonstrate in practice what they have learnt previously (or alternatively how the placement has made them question what has previously been learnt!)
- how the placement has further inspired them to seek a long-term career within the subject
- how their abilities or previous experience fit with the demands of a career related to the subject.
AM
Today I met with the PR in house team. They mainly deal with
corporate communications. As the years have gone on they have found a higher
demand to increase their team.
Within in their job they need to ensure they promote the
company in a good light as well as the promotion of online tournaments. They
say they are very lucky in the way pokerstars is such a known brand and many
people want to write about pokerstars. To continue pokerstars has 70% coverage
in the poker word over other poker sights.
Within the company they sponser celebrities such as
Chrisiano Ronaldo and Nadar. Having a celebrity relation is important as it
brings in trust and more customers. Along with the sportsmen they havea well
known journalist who is a poker fan. Vicky Cohren tweets a lot about poker and
brings in awareness to her niche market and her status brings legitimacy to the
game.
They started talking about using a new live streaming site
called ‘twitch’ to bring in further clients.
One of the good points I have enjoyed about the chats I have
had with the team is that they don’t do any PR stunts and are professional at
all times. This shows the company is well established with out using any tricks
to gain publicity.
They then set my a research project:
To do a little bit of research on how the head of World Snooker has managed to make some big changes to the game in the face of criticism from many players – I wanted it as a case study in how his strong vision and communications strategy could help advise ours when we come to announce the reduction in VIP benefits to players.
I thoroughly researched the relevant material and here is the outcome of my case study to pokerstars.com
Case Study on Barry Hearn
PR Department
Alice Bibby
Wiki Notes:
Until July 2010, Hearn was
chairman of the World
Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. In June 2010,
following a vote by the members in June 2010, Hearn took a controlling interest
in the organisation's commercial arm, World Snooker Limited with a
view to revitalising the game.
Wiki Notes:
· One of the matters most relevant to the ousting of
the previous WPBSA
board and the return of Barry Hearn was giving the players more playing and earning opportunities.
·
In the 2009/2010
snooker season (pre Hearn) there were 6 ranking tournaments, added
with invitationals the number of events on the calendar being at around 15
competitions in total that were open to most professionals. Those players lower down the rankings required second jobs to supplement
their income as the game for them had become a part time choir.
In contrast, the provisional calendar for the 2011/2012 season features 9
ranking tournaments, 13 minor ranking events under the Players Tour
Championship brand and 7 invitationals which include the traditional
Wembley Masters
and the shot clock
Premier
League.
·
The calendar
increasing to a record breaking 29 official World Snooker events.
·
The sport is now
a full time profession once
again.
·
The current
generation of top players still includes Ronnie
O'Sullivan and John Higgins.
Daily Mail Reports in January 2010:
“Hearn has pledged that
prize money will rise from £3.5million in 2009/10 to £4.5m in 2010/11, and has
also promised to return control to the WPBSA if he fails with
his venture”
FT 2014:
Hearn’s direction is mainly leading
the sport eastward. Since tobacco sponsorship was banned in 2005, this
tournament has passed through four different bookmakers. This year, tellingly, the
name on the posters is the Asian specialist Dafabet. The extent of Chinese
interest in any sport is always hard for outsiders to assess and the reality
can be disappointing for expansionist entrepreneurs. Tai Chengzhe, World
Snooker’s PR man in China, says 10m people regularly watch snooker on the
CCTV-5 sports channel, rising to a Taylor-Davisish 20m if Ding is in a big
final. But even that it is less than two per cent of the population.
The Independent on Hearns Vision:
Hearn's vision of
a snooker more amenable to broadcasters and sponsors. It involves matches restricted to 30 minutes in
length, regardless of frames, and includes a 20-second shot-clock. There are
other tweaks, including the number of reds and bonus points but it is all meant
to combine to create a faster, more intense game. Interview about Hearns
changes the rules also seem perfectly matched to his own brand of instinctive, off-the-cuff
brilliance. And he seems as ready for the advent of Power Snooker as
any broadcaster. "To be honest, I find the World Championship
quite a bore," he said. "Seventeen days in Sheffield is
quite draining. I don't want to be told what I can and can't do. I would rather
play in the Premier League than the World Championship. You can just pitch up
and play and move on. You don't have to sit around a hotel room in Sheffield
trying to fill your day."
Worldsnooker.com Article in 2014:
· Snooker’s 2014 World Championship reached an
astonishing audience of over 330 million viewers worldwide.
·
Increase of over
30 per cent on last year’s audience of 252,905,000.
· The event was broadcast live by 12 broadcasters in 80
different countries
·
World Snooker
Chairman Barry Hearn said: “This underlines the incredible
growth of snooker as a global sport in recent years.
· .“The viewing audience is growing at a rapid rate,
matched by the increase in the number of tournaments, the level of prize money,
and participation levels worldwide”
·
I am delighted
by the progress that snooker has achieved, and we are fully committed
to continuing this growth in years to come. “We have just witnessed
one of the most exciting World Championships in recent memory with dramatic matches
and a remarkable standard of play. The new season has already started and there
will be much more of the same in 2014/15.”
"What I can
compare it to is Usain Bolt, who is the number one sprinter in the world but
does not start halfway down the track," said World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn.
What's the financial effect?
Elite players currently get prize money even if they are
knocked out in their opening match, but that is about to change.
2012 World Snooker Championship prize money
Winner: £250,000
Runner-up: £125,000
Semi-finals: £52,000
Quarter-finals: £24,050
Last 16: £16,000
Last 32: £12,000
Last 48: £8,200
Last 64: £4,600
·
"The principle will be you have to win at least
one game before you get any prize money," said Hearn.
·
"At the moment a top-16 player is guaranteed
about £65,000 annually before he takes his cue out of his case”
·
"If you have a ranking system based on prize
money, that's a hell of a start. Under the new system, if a player makes the
last 16 in each tournament, he will be guaranteed about £90,000."
·
Hearn says the
total prize money in snooker has risen from £3.5m to £8m in three years.
Critics say there are far more tournaments, greater travel involved (five
ranking events are in China) and less money in some competitions and for
highest breaks.
·
In the two years
to November 2012, every player in the world's top 32 earned at least £100,000
in prize money, but no-one ranked below 48 won more than £50,000 during that
period.
Which players back the plan?
Several leading players
support the move.
"If I can't
come through the 128 scenario flat system where I might be playing someone ranked
outside the top 64 first, I don't deserve to win tournaments," said four-time world champion Higgins, 37.
What are the positives?
·
"It will give players, particularly Chinese
players and others around the world, a better chance of coming through a lot
quicker" - Ken Doherty, 1997 world champion
·
"I'm sure there's going to be a lot of
different faces at venues - I hope there is" - Jack Lisowski, ranked
43
·
Australian
Robertson, the world champion in 2010, said: "The idea is if we progress to the last 32, last 16, we will be on
guaranteed more money than we were in the first place."
·
Shaun Murphy,
winner of the 2005 World Championship, believes it will be a truer test. "This for me is the landmark decision
that should have been taken years and years ago," he said.
·
"For the first time ever the top players will be
able to look everyone in the eye and say they are the top players because they
have had to beat everybody else."
·
For players like
Matthew Selt, who is ranked number 46, it could potentially change his life. "People who are in certain brackets higher
than me are not taking to it very well, and that's understandable, but for a
game to grow, you need to be on a level playing field, a fairer playing field,"
he said.
The opposing view
Some top players say they
have earned the privilege of starting later on in tournaments, rather like big
clubs entering the FA Cup in the third round.
Mark Allen, the world number
nine, said: "I've worked hard for the last seven years to get
where I am. It seems like we are going back to square one which is a step
backwards."
What are the negatives?
·
"There are some tournaments where they want to
guarantee the top 16 players turn up there. Well, you can't guarantee that the
top 32 are going to turn up now"
- John Parrott, 1991 world champion
·
"It's a nonsense. What we are talking about is
playing qualifiers in what you can only describe as squash courts" - John Virgo, 1979 UK champion
·
The 1991 world
champion John Parrott believes television viewers will be disappointed if the
best players do not qualify.
·
"I'm very much old school. I don't think you
need to paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa," said Parrott.
·
"I'm not saying the players lower down are not
great players, but they are less well known and you put bums on seats with the
top players."
·
Hearn calls the
current system "protectionism" for top players
and Ali Carter, the world number 14, admits there is some self-interest.
·
"Barry Hearn is going to do exactly what he
wants to do because he owns the game so all us players haven't really got an
opinion any more," said Carter,
a beaten world finalist in 2008 and 2012.
·
"I'd prefer it to stay as it is because it's
better for me. It might be fairer for everyone else, but I'm not everyone else,
I'm me, and I'm in the top 16."
Ronnie
Sullivan Addmitting Barry Hearn is Doing A Good thing:
Public Comments Found on various sites:
24 Jan 2013 22:33
“If top players get knocked out early
(and they will - because they hate playing in qualifiers with no one watching)
who is going to buy tickets to watch players they have never heard of at the
venue - I can see a lot of empty seats!
If I was a sponsor and a lot of top
seeds did not even make it to TV stages - I would be worried about my
investment to say the least”!
23 Jan 2013 20:00
Snooker has been slowly dying for 20
years, Doesn't matter what BH does to try and save it, it's finished as a
mainstream TV sport in this country.
The 1st few rounds behind closed doors?
So why have them. If it is to distinguish the best 32 to then put in front of
TV for audiences, shouldn't the topped ranked (best 16) be there automatically?
The top 16 only got there in the current system, so anyone lower down can also
do it if they are good enough.
Viewing Figures:
2014 viewers: 331,144,000
2013
viewers: 252,905,000
2011 Viewers: 27.1million
My Analysis.
Barry Hearn, made changes
that people didn’t like but he put massive emphasise on how it will change
snooker for the better. So I believe that reminding the users that it is for
other reasons other than profitability is essential. Giving more emphasis that is for the good of
the VIP club while at the same time changing the rules. I noticed that Barry
always explained rather than apologising too. I also think putting more
emphasis on better products will take the mind of the changes. Like Barry
Hearn, he made changes that people didn’t like but he put massive emphasise on
how it will change snooker for the better. There were players who didn’t initially
agree to the change but have since realised its benefits (see Ronny Sullivan’s
article).
On a final note:
"It
has split the views of players, commentators and analysts. It boils down to
whether you think you have worked hard so you deserve to be further through in
an event, or whether that is unfair," said six-time world champion Steve
Davis.
No comments:
Post a Comment