As I was scanning my new issue of Fortune magazine last week, I came across a short piece on pinball. Yeah, pinball like the Who and arcades and all that. Obviously, there has been a consolidation in the industry over the past few decades yet there seems to be some optimism overall. That aside, this concept fascinated me -- The International Flipper Pinball Association. The article mentions that the association has 14,000 members.
I sprung to the trusty laptop and immediately surfed to the IFPA website. Jealousy. The only true criticism that I can offer is that I could never find a clear path to membership (I assume it comes through playing in an IFPA event).
Other than that, the site is clean, modern and incredibly focused. That kind of professional look has a huge impact in forming first impressions for a visitor. Within seconds of landing on the home page, I understood exactly what the IFPA is about -- a world championship. On top of that, the IFPA had 18 postings in the month of February for a steady stream of pinball news to keep players coming back for more.
That contrasts quite a bit with the overall croquet scene. As we know, it starts with rules that seem complex to newcomers and then expands into four different codes (potentially five if gateball spreads to the croquet nations). I've been covering international croquet since 2008 and I haven't quite figured out the overall political/power structure of the sport. The WCF seems to be noble in it's purpose, but my opinion would be that it is vastly under-funded and therefore operating in the same Scotch tape and bailing wire approach that plagues most volunteer organizations. It's an interesting reality based on the perception of being a sport for the super-wealthy.
Circling back, the point is not to be critical of current organizations. There are valid reasons why the sport is where it is now and truthfully, I am very optimistic about the overall progress. So, really the idea is to just take a peak at a completely un-related "sport" and perhaps search for new ways to establish focus for our game.