Follow-Up and Call to Action

Last week we had an interesting discussion on what we'd like to see improved with DC United. Lots of great discussion and several good ideas were floated, and two ideas seemed to resonate particularly well with the readership.

1. Street Teams: Getting people to do visibility around DC focusing on 18-24 areas.
2. New Fan's Guide: Providing some form of orientation to fans who had not attended a United game previously.

Well, since I have so sense of personal shame or embarrassment, I forwarded a link to that post with a message highlighting those two points to D.C. United. In short order I was told that the message had been forwarded to various marketing folks, and further information may come back.

Now, I don't have anything on-the-record from anyone, but here's what I do know regarding this information.

1. Street Teams Implementation: While there doesn't seem to be a group focused on visibility by, for instance, putting up posters, there are people who apparently tour the city and suburban soccer fields and give tickets to people wearing DC United colors. This program will be running from about March to June. So if you're involved in a rec league, or following a league, don't be afraid to wear your DCU shirts outside. Now, that's not quite the same thing as what was being suggested by our reader Adelino. So let's definitely keep this idea in mind as something we may wish to push more on in the future. If United may not do it formally, perhaps one of the Supporter's groups might be willing to implement something...
2. New Fan's Guide: The idea was apparently interesting to United's marketing folks, but they were talking about hiring a writer or perhaps finding a template to tweak. I think we can do one better. So here's what I say: We write our own orientation guide. Yeah, us. Just a few pages, covering things on where and how to buy tickets, what to wear to the game, what to look for during the game, and what to do after the game if you want to see more. I figure we can make our own document and turn it over to United. Am I saying they'll use it? Nope, I have no guarantee on that whatsoever. Hell, we may give them something and they could decide it is useless. Or they may decide its useful, but want to do their own revisions. But I figure, as fans, we know a lot about what potential new fans might need to know, so we should do it.

Now, I don't have time to write this myself, but if people are interested, I think we can put together a group where each person will write a section within an outline, and then we can turn the whole kit and caboodle over. No more than a paragraph or two from anyone, to keep things manageable. If you're interested, drop an email or leave a comment. In the event we go forward with this effort, we'll keep you posted on the updates. And even if United doesn't decide they want it, The DCenters will happily host the end product for future Google searchers. What say you?