There's substantial Standard-Examiner front page ink this morning for "this week's Archery World Cup event as Ogden becomes the first American host site in the five-year history of the competition":
• World Cup Archery event drawing attention to sport, dollars to Ogden areaIlluminating quote from one of the big honchos involved with this event:
Greg Easton, president of the Ogden World Cup Organizing Committee, said a multitude of factors went into the decision to bring the event here. Those include the right facilities, a pro-sports city focus, summer weather, the support of Ogden city officials and the local business community, and the size of the city.Here's the part Mr. Easton left out, gentle readers. This event is obviously a warm-up for the Godfrey Administration's next full court press for the construction of a downtown velodrome.
After a little Googling, we've discovered that Mr. Easton is also a board member of the Easton Sports Development Foundation, the same foundation which was mentioned in connection with last year's rejected RAMP application as a proposed $2 million donor for Boss Godfrey's pie-in-the-sky $15 million velodrome project.
Amidst all the World Cup Archery hoopla, we just wanted to help the Emerald City Lumpencitizens connect the dots.
In the "sales" racket, the "try it before you buy it" approach is what's sometimes known as "the puppy dog close".
Who will be the first to comment?
5 comments:
To Mr. Easton's credit, he's the ONLY person who has actually provided a written promise to financially support the velodrome ("field house") project.
Otherwise, "pie in the sky" sounds pretty accurate to me.
If this event is something folks want to go see, then it's good for them. One of my kids did.
But how it is good in any other sense escapes me. I guess some businesses, from hotels to snow cone carts, sell some more product as a result of this. But how is that good for anybody else escapes me.
The article says it draws attention to Ogden, as if that too is good. I ask: Does the fact that Yellowstone, or Yosemite are oppressively crowded enhance anything about them? Did drawing attention to them improve them, somehow?
Was California - once a paradise, now a crowded, polluted, crime ridden hole - improved by attention being drawn to it? Was anywhere improved by attention or by more people?
So how does it benefit Ogden?
Are there some kind of sickos out there who only love pollution, crowding, crime, etc, who are only happy when in the midst of it?
Then go there. There are plenty of suck holes like that. How does despoiling Ogden satisfy these weirdos?
These are not intended as rhetorical questions. I truly would like somebody to explain how crowds and traffic make life better for anybody, unless, as I said, you want to go to the event per se.
Yep! It's definitely the puppy dog close tactic.
Yep! I use this same technique a lot, when I 'm selling refrigerators to Eskimos
Danny:
If the event organizers think it succeeded in Ogden, that can make Ogden more attractive to other sporting groups for meets, tournaments, etc., and yes, Danny, that would be good for Ogden's businesses. And that's good for Ogden.
I'm glad the archers are here, and I hope their tourney goes well. Never having seen competitive archery, I'll stop by for a look as well.
Be nice if WSU suspended the on-campus street parking regs for the three days of the tourney on campus, but I don't know that it has.
Curm, you said,
". . . that would be good for Ogden's businesses. And that's good for Ogden."
What does that mean? Are Ogden's businesses a monolith? Is Ogden some kind of independent entity that has appointed spokespersons such as yourself?
If you like having the thing here yourself, just say so. Speak for yourself, unless you have some kind of ballot showing you speak both for all businesses or for all residents.
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