Attracting New Players

[Rick]

Quite often people don't join quiz bowl because they feel they won't be any good, or because they think it's only for "supernerds". What are some different ways to solve these problems or work around them to gain members?

[Angry Babies in Love]

At the first practice, offer food, start with easy questions, and give lots of words of encouragement. If you see anyone with promise, be sure to follow up with them and get them to come back.

Also, try paying attractive girls to come to your first practice.

[Rick]

Thanks for the advice (especially that last idea, which is ingenious).

Also, to avoid any possible future confusion, the team in question is not my own, but the team of another hs in the same city. And they aren't new, but they're still developing.

[Mewto55555]

Also, try paying attractive girls to come to your first practice.

This didn't work for us, but that's perhaps because we paid Ben Zhang to wear a dress and a wig.


What has worked for us though is basically telling everyone we know to show up and try it for a few weeks. We then follow this by telling stories of people on our team who thought they would hate it, were forced to come to practice, and then really like it.

[Urech hydantoin synthesis]

Also, try paying attractive girls to come to your first practice.

This didn't work for us, but that's perhaps because we paid Ben Zhang to wear a dress and a wig.


What has worked for us though is basically telling everyone we know to show up and try it for a few weeks. We then follow this by telling stories of people on our team who thought they would hate it, were forced to come to practice, and then really like it.

what the

But yeah, get them to realize that they actually do know more than 0% of the answers, and that it's not all irrelevant trivia that they will never, ever use or encounter in real life.

[ryanrosenberg]

Also, try paying attractive girls to come to your first practice.

This didn't work for us, but that's perhaps because we paid Ben Zhang to wear a dress and a wig.


What has worked for us though is basically telling everyone we know to show up and try it for a few weeks. We then follow this by telling stories of people on our team who thought they would hate it, were forced to come to practice, and then really like it.

Hey, I would show up to see Ben in a dress and a wig.

The second strategy has worked for us, too.

[Sniper, No Sniping!]

What attracted me to the quiz bowl team here at Fisher was the fact I could get on TV and be challenged in competitions in the academic world. I don't know if that'd be the same interests that prospective students might hold where you're at, but I think that could be what intrigues most. Also, I think what can attract new players is if you have an awesome advisor (especially if they're a teacher) that is really supportive and pushes you to go the extra mile in anything you do and wants to help you get better at quiz bowl. If you don't have an adult advisor (I believe some quiz bowl clubs out there are actually student ran, but have a parent/faculty member to act as the governing adult), but if you're a big school, I think a student ran club could also intrigue those who want to get involved with peer activities that are "fun".

EDIT: It might be worth noting that if your team has had some "tradition" of winning (like my school, where OAC State Champ banners outnumber the State Title banners for all the sports in the gym), try to force that hand. Getting your friends to join the team who like academic/trivia/Jeopardy! is a good idea. Food sells too, as does the building of camaraderie.

[eliza.grames]

This might not work so well for high schools, but we host free mixed academic and pop culture tournaments for the general student body, and tell the ones who like the academic part to show up at practice. High schools could try hosting mini-tournaments for students just in their schools during Homecoming, and make the questions fun and relevant to that particular region (and at a level slightly below regular quizbowl) to get people interested. Another option is approaching teachers and asking if you can run a mini-tournament in their class about the subject they teach to help students review for the final. With that option, students will feel like they'd be good at quizbowl since they've been studying the subject all semester and (hopefully) know it fairly well. The problem is that you have to write the questions for these mini-tournaments, which can be quite a bit of work (though if anyone is looking for question sets like the one I mentioned, that one is already done and you can use it and we have a few others as well!).

[Morlin]

People always don't like 1)to be bored, 2)to feel and seem stupid
So just try to offer some enterntainment for players to attract them, and assure people that no one will be too patronizing or skeptical about their brainpower there, whatever. Well, actually then you should make sure it actually will be so as you've told them. Creating a friendly atmosphere is really important, so that players could relax and feel safe and comfortable.

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[JordanKuhn]

I think the #1 thing that people hate about it is when they show up for practice and get 0 questions....and then they come back the next time, and get 0. And maybe they get one every 3 practices they go to. That's a major turn-off for most students, at least as far as I've seen.
I know when I started, I HATED going to practices, but I was sort of (sort of) pressured into it because my brother did it and I was the only representing freshman, so I was standing for something It wasn't until now (sophomre year) that I started to get into it and I love it now!

Back to the topic at hand, I think a great way to keep kids in at the beginning, at least, so they don't quit immediately, is to lower the question difficulty(no duh, right? :p). Maybe use the questions from the Fall Novice tournaments, or something similar. I've found the torrey-pines middle school questions to be a good, helpful guide for the basic subjects that are pretty easy-there's nothing extraordinarily difficult in them, and it helps expose the new students to the things they will experience (a shortened version of the pyramid structure, for instance).

However, this leads to the problem of having your better, older players powering all the questions....which makes the new ones feel stupid and like they'll never get any. I can't think of any "good" solutions to this problem, but maybe holding a few "younger player only" practices could get the younger kids a chance to practice among themselves and get a few questions (remember, they'll be your A team in 2/3 years!). However, this could be unpractical, so it's up to you! (or future posters...) to determine some way to work out that issue.

Good food definitely makes people want to come back, but #1 that gets expensive after a while, and #2 kids might have no attachment or desire to be on the team, they just come for the food. (Not really, nobody would stay after school for a few cookies, right? )

Okay, well, I had some ideas, but then my attentino was called away for 20 minutes and now I can't remember them. So if I remember I'll post 'em later...sorry!

[mithokie]

We have taken to holding separate practice rooms for more experienced and less experienced player for just the reasons that Jordan outlined above. I think it is a more welcoming and a better learning environment if you do so. Newer players hearing more experienced players power questions on Tolstoy, when they don't even know that Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina, don't tend to learn the basic canon that they need to become successful quizbowlers.