How do you like that for 100% authoritative statements pal?

I was taking my weekly shower out of mason jars and the thought came across to me: what are a few reasons that our darling sport isn’t more well-known? I am aware, of course, that sports in general take a while to get into the public mind (American football began around 1892 and didn’t really become “the greatest game ever played” until 1958)(thanks Wikipedia!). But beyond that, what is going to propel our sport into the next phase of development.

The phase where we start growing hair in different places and noticing other polo clubs are changing, too.

People need a team to root for
Most major sports—short of tennis, which is kind of goofy anyway—have teams. Most times they have more players on those teams than can play at any given point. The idea of this team, this group identity that folks can get behind, is what makes them so damned loyal to that team.

Right now we in polo have 3 man teams that we draw up out of our club cities (mostly). While this makes 100% perfect sense, it doesn’t lend itself to that big team identity that people can stand behind.
Instead, you can have a club playing against itself, inconsistencies with those teams in smaller or more flexible clubs, and so forth. It doesn’t create a stable identity for spectators to get into.

In Bench Minor format, you do have that whole club feel because, gosh golly, most times it is your whole club or at least most of it. Instead of playing against your own club’s players you’ve got an “us against them” mindset – something that draws spectators into the game a bit more.

People need leaders
One thing that makes bike polo awesome is that a club is pretty autonomous. Sure, we have star players and decision making folks out there, but we’re an immensely democratic sorta operation.

This is also something that hamstrings us, though. Read more