I was planning a post about a conversation I had recently with a colleague. Today, I was given an additional reason to write this post. My colleague felt a television show about horses would have to be “dumbed down” to appeal to the general public. I’ve encountered this concept a lot in my professional experience with equestrian sport. The general idea, among the “insiders”, seems to be that you have to be one of them to do a proper job of telling their stories, producing sports television about them, or marketing the sport. But how many people, whose specialty is riding or training horses, also excel at writing, television production or marketing?
Today a thread started running on an internet forum for the equestrian community. It is about a former television commentator who covered equestrian sport. Some of the posts seem to adhere to this same concept. I’m not going to comment on the particular commentator. However, the impression some had was that the commentator could have been good, but she had to talk down to the ordinary viewer, who is not involved with equestrian sport.technicalities of the sport, explained in the lingo of the sport, will only turn away potential fans, journalists, readers and viewers.
Language and terminology is one of the greatest barriers that equestrian sport and some other niche market sports face in attracting fans from the general public. It is also a huge barrier in media relations. It is something that will come up often in the tips on this blog.
The truth is, the general public likes stories that are interesting. And nothing is interesting to them if they don’t understand the language. A well-crafted story will be interesting to both people who know the sport and those who don’t. Using words by their literal meaning, instead of the insider slang of the sport, is one of the top ways to make yourself and the sport more attractive to the public, the media and sponsors. Human interest stories about almost any subject draw attention. The technicalities of the sport, explained in the lingo of the sport, will only turn away potential fans, journalists, readers and viewers. Those technicalities can be stated in plain English and in language that is common to other sports. That will attract and hold interest until, one day, the slang of the sport may be as well understood as the slang of mass-market sports already is.
