There is currently an Embry-Riddle Athletics iPhone App in development. The great thing about being at school where the students are smarter than you is the wealth of free knowledge at your disposal.
The application (tentatively referred to as the iFlock) will have five different tabs providing inside access to the latest news in athletics, links to the sports teams, a calendar of events, a multimedia tab (that will include videos, photos, Twitter accounts and a digital cheer sheet), and several motivational moments that we're calling Ridderisms.
We had Steve Ridder do a photo shoot at DME Studios late last week so that we could provide you with quality images of our beloved Athletic Director and Basketball Coach. Think of each of them as portraits of greatness on par with the painting of the Godfather (Luke Wilson) that Will Ferrell had the new recruits hang at the end of "Old School." We'll pair the photographs with an mp3 of Coach Ridder's greatest sayings (We’re not rebuilding; we’re reloading").
The app should be ready to send off to Apple for final approval by the middle of January. We'll keep you posted on when it will be available.
Sad to say, but it's true. We haven't been productive at all on the old Flock TV blog during the Fall 2009 semester. Our apologies are long overdue. As our New Year Resolution, we promise to keep you up to date with everything that we are doing and finding in the sports marketing world.
Here's a small overview of what we did this fall (while not writing in this blog).
1. The Jonas Brother Beatdown started it all back on August 23rd. Purchasing some cardboard cutouts of the JoBros and one of Hanna Montana (for the ladies), we got the new froshies into the Flock festivities by letting them beat up the still life. It was insanely fun. To see some pictures hit up ERAU student and photographer extraordinaire Jordan Clancy on facebook.
2. Top Gun Night. The airplane men and women of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University came out in full support of the women's soccer team as they took on, and beat, Warner University 4-3. Grab a look at some pics here.
3. Mustache Mania was back in action this year. The Flock placed in the race, taking home 3rd overall in the men's division (out of 7 teams). We've got the trophy to prove it. Volleyball was dominant yet again during the mustachioed weekend. Pics are here.
4. THE FLOCK SET A WORLD RECORD. That's right, world record. The Guinness Book of World Record's won't recongnize it though, which is a shame, but more on that further down the article. Since everyone loves Wiffle Ball, we decided that we'd toughen up and play the game longer than anyone has ever played it - which prior to October 18th had been for 30 hours straight. We sandwiched our Epic Wiffle match between two women's soccer games and played for 43 straight hours, and still haven't made up for the loss of sleep. We tried to Live Stream the entire event, but the camera cut in and out a few times. You can watch us swing and miss right here if you missed out the first time around. We raised a ton of money for Susan G. Komen for the Cure by asking every player to donate a minimum of $1 to play in the game. Black Crow Radio helped us out tremendously by airing free promo spots to encourage the local Daytona Beachians to come out and play, WESH, an NBC affiliate got a nice interview with a very tired Flocker, and over 150 people came out to make history. Unfortunately we had more than 5 people per side playing during the game, so the record won't count officially, but thanks to the precise timing device of Embry-Riddle Track & Field we were able to have a countdown timer for our 43 hour game. Who needs a Guinness plaque anyway? We made a difference by raising money for breast cancer research. Duquesne can think they set the record, but we know who really did. And we know how to spell wiffle. Promo videos we did prior to the game are below.
5. Costume Night was back again, but this year saw more tried and true costumes rather than the made up one's that were so dominant last year (like TP Man and his arch nemesis Skidmark). Pac-Man made a run out onto the field after a goal scored by our women's team. Pirates were bountiful. We gave away 4 premium seats to the Miami Heat opener against the Chicago Bulls. Tons of lil' Flockers made it out to fish is the Flock Aquarium (where they found more candy than they - or their parents - knew what do do with). In one of the largest debacles in sports marketing history we tried to get the crowd of over 350 to all wear Burger King masks for the first five minutes of the game and pick out one opposing player to point at. Well, we couldn't get BK to sponsor us, so we made the masks ourselves, and the eye holes were a tad too small to really see out of. Most people didn't get it any way, but our arts and crafts Boy Scout badges came in last week, so at least that made us happy. The Riddle Players, ERAU's theatrical group, put on a short film festival for Halloween so we made a little piece to enter. Video is below. Pics are here.
6. After all our sports teams won their respective regular season crowns (5 for 5), a feat that has never been accomplished at the NAIA level, we hosted the volleyball, women's soccer and men's soccer championships. In an effort to get more school support to the games, we devised a marketing plan that involved the players form the teams and the school as a whole. Playing athropologists who had just discovered a tribe who are known as accomplished warriors on the athletic battle field, we kept a week long journal of our trip to the village of the Erau's (E'r OWz). We created a website call LAND OF CHAMPIONS, and did a series of videos that were intended to look like fieldnote diaries. It was way more successful than the BK masks. Videos below:
7. To cap off the semester, we had planned a huge event for our basketball team's annual game versus our rival Flagler College. Many of you will remember the article we wrote last year about the once proud rivalry game, and we had been building off of that idea since July. With the help of some alumi from the basketball program we were able to get a nice little website together: SAVE THE RIVALRY. On it is a highlight video from the past 22 years the schools have been playing, a petiton to keep the game going and links to the facebook and twitter sites we established to keep this small college rivalry going. We made 200 t-shirts that said BEAT FLAGLER on them (which the Flagler students took offense to), and our team wound up doing what they were asked, winning by 20 points. Pics prior to the game are here, and from the game are here. Vids below.
There is currently an Embry-Riddle Athletics iPhone App in development. The great thing about being at school where the students are smarter than you is the wealth of free knowledge at your disposal.