Phil isn't the only small, round and hairy prognosticator, it seems.
On Tuesday, I wrote up a little blog post about growth and decline in the sport of axe throwing. Bring yourselves low and tremble, o mortals, for just the next day, BATL announced the unexpected (at least by what I can gather by a series of posts on FB) closure of 3 locations, leaving swaths of leaguers in some pretty frustrating situations.
And while I made a similar point in that post, I thought it valuable to make it again on its own. Not that I don't trust my average reader or anything - but let's be honest. Between each other, let's be real.
THAT HEADLINE ISN'T REALLY HOW i FEEL. WE'RE JUST REACHING A NATURAL POINT OF NOVELTY.
Axe throwing is, to the average person, a novelty adventure for a night out. It feels goofy, it's fun to do with friends, and it seems hella out of place for the average person. Because of that, it caught on in a big way, leading to an accelerating expansion of axe venues.
Covid hit, which certainly affected the trajectory of growth, but once restrictions were lifted, people again came back to the axe venue (think about it: an activity where you are theoretically isolated from your competitor, in a lane where people aren't supposed to get terribly close to you. Kinda perfect for social distancing, right?).
But with that wave comes the ever-expected crash (again, I'm just trying to tie up that metaphor. I don't see this as a "crash" like the stock market in the 30s or anything). Rapid expansion often comes at the price of not having, you know, any data backing up whether an investment will be worth it in the long run. So you have a bunch of axe houses springing up around the nation who, frankly, are riding out a wave of interest and hoping that wave will last a good long time.
THE KEY TO SPORT GROWTH IS LEAGUE GROWTH
Okay, I think I've gone on long enough to ensure that a few of you folks out there are thinking:
and you'd be right. I'm not. Nor have I ever opened/operated an axe venue. But this is my blog and you should be used to unhinged, poorly-researched though pieces. I categorize these little tirades as opinions and not facts.
BUT - I'll also say that I think about how this sport functions a lot, and my day job is based around the ability to consider how organizations can build themselves to grow and achieve recognition. So there, clutchy, you grumpy little dweeb.
Now, back to it: the foundation of any axe organization is, of course, its members. Ergo, ensuring that membership is high (and active) is essential in maintaining and growing the success of the sport.
None of that should necessarily be surprising to anyone, but I believe there's a fundamental mis-framing happening in axe throwing (at least from what I've seen). And it's this: Axe leaguers themselves must consider themselves, not axe venues, responsible for growing axe leagues. In fact, let me just say the quiet part loud:
AXE VENUES AREN'T YOUR FRIENDS. THEY ARE BUSINESSES.
You can be friends with the people running the venue, you can BE the person running the venue for goodness sake, but in any capitalist nation, axe venues are, first and foremost, businesses. They have to look at what costs money, what makes money, and the relationship between the two. If they find they're not making money anymore, no amount of "we're a community!" nonsense is going to stop them from moving on to other ventures.
So where does that leave leaguers? How do we, in our own leagues and in the sport, generally, make sure we keep axe venues happy to support us, while we make sure they are getting their doubloons/staying profitable?
AXE LEAGUES GROW WHEN WE GROW AXE LEAGUES
Hot take alert! It's up to us. Axe throwers, leaguers, people-who-check-their-collins-rating-for-no-reason-ers. If we want axe throwing to remain popular and boost involvement year-after-year, not JUST in big cities where incidental, birthday-party throwers are likely to throw but also in smaller towns, we have to step up our game in recruitment.
It is SO EASY to just get comfortable with the friends you have/with the league members you have and not work at recruiting new throwers, but that's how this sport is gonna fade away to a shell of it's current interest level. If you want to continue to see growth, you gotta do the growing, bub.
To be hella clear: I'm not saying that in the next five years, axe league members are going to be scattered to the wind. That there will be axe houses all over the place with a "CLOSED FOREVER" sign on the front and, I don't know, a tumbleweed going by. But without a deep commitment to growing the sport from the bottom up, it's certainly MORE likely that there will be fewer new axe venues in the future, and more closures of axe houses that we have, currently.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO "GROW" AXE LEAGUES?
Putting it plainly, growing an axe league means you, as a current axe-league thrower, aren't passively hoping that more people get interested in joining a league. Your active participation in recruitment can take multiple paths:
You ask your friends who don't throw to join you in axe throwing
You see if the company you work for would take your whole team there as a party
You engage with people who are there already (for a night out) and sing them the virtues of joining league
And if all of that sounds a lot like what venue owners/employees already do, it's because it IS what venues already do - but there's a big difference between a company saying "we're great" and an outside party saying "they're great!"
Hell, you may want to consider collecting ten bucks from everyone in your current league to "sponsor" a new thrower joining for their first time. Take a sting out of that price tag and see if you can hook them. You do that a few times a year and you could potentially grow your league quite a bit while helping people experience axe throwing on the cheap(er).
MY POINT IS THIS: DON'T BE PASSIVE
Axe throwing, and specifically leagues, have created an amazing community of people. And that community has a lot of passion that, I believe, can be used to grow itself into something even more grand than what we currently have. I DREAM of axe throwing becoming more mainstream (in as much as every town having an axe venue, because why wouldn't they), and in having a flourishing, diverse and involved league membership. But we're not gonna get there by depending on the business side of things alone, nor by hoping that our organizing bodies are capable of robust recruitment. It comes down to us, the leaguers, to protect and grow our leagues.
So, uh, I guess...get to it?
I really like the idea of sponsoring a first time thrower…I would do this for every new season! Great ideas Matt . Humorous but real at the same time.