Do any of you Outsports guys plan to be in town for these games? My partner and I are going to all 3 games, which should be great with the Giants incredible lead in the NL West and the Astros close situation in the central.

If anybody plans on being around, let's hook up at some point!

Just wanted to bring this alive again to see if anyone's going to be at these games about 3 weeks from now! I'd love to meet some Outsporters in that region!

Cheers,
Bill

You've got to be joking that there are NO Outsportsers attending these games.I know there are a lot of gay guys in Houston and I can't believe none of them is going to even one of these games. It's the SF Giants for Christ's sakes and the Astros are on the verge of winning the NFL Central. Where are you guys!!!??? :confused:

there are very few other outsporters from houston as far as i know... sorry, i won't be at any of the games myself (i'm a red sox fan).

Well faydman, you need to start recruiting some Houstonians! You really should be rooting for your Houston Astros, even though you have the Redsox embedded as your favorites. wink

Come back to Dallas, you know there are gay fans too! Haven't met any Outsporters, but I know there have to be some. wink

Well I guess it'll be a cold day in hell when the Astros win the NFL Central. Wonder how many glasses of wine I'd had when I wrote that one?
eek! :confused:

Bill, having just (unsuccessfully) tried to promote a gay Monday Night Football party in SF, I sympathize. Gay sports fans in SF seem to truly be a rare breed. We posted our Raiders/Broncos MNF event on Outsports and Craig's List; we invited Fog Rugby, the Earthquakes Hockey teams, the teams in our gay softball league division... we got the same guys from our own group who always come -- and no one else. I've become very cynical about gay men (sports fans and otherwise) who say they want "alternatives to the gay scene" but don't support alternative events.

How about the whopping 200 (according to the Dallas Voice) that attended the first "Gay Day with the Rangers" at the Ballpark in Arlington. Actually 275 tickets or so sold, but some didn't attend. Someone reported 400 in another thread, but I knew that wasn't right looking at that section from my prime seating. And yes, I was a non-conformist who didn't give up his prime seating to sit in the gay section. Hey, it was the first time I ever had 4th row tickets, do you blame me?

Well, I didn't quite have 4th-row seats on August 12th, but they were pretty good seats. But I felt it was important to sit in the gay section that night, so I traded my tickets in.

RGMike--I don't know what your plans are for future Monday nights, but I'd keep trying to get these people to attend. Considering California's population, it just seems impossible that there aren't more sports fans who'd be willing to show up. I think you just have to keep hammering them with publicity for as long as you can. And if you're not doing so, may I suggest listings in local papers and contacting non-sports-related groups as well, to reach the gay public at large.

Joe -- I appreciate your suggestions. SF is unique in that it's not a place where there are a lot of guys "who just happen to be gay". People come here specifically to be as gay as humanly possible, because they can't be that way wherever they're from. So the "community" here tends to be a bit, er, lopsided. (Yes, I'm a cynic.) SF is small, and since most guys go to the bars after work anyway, having the event in a gay bar (albeit one in the Haight and not the Castro) seemed obvious -- "you're going to go to a bar anyway, so come to ours" -- but it didn't work out that way.

As a group, we don't have an advertising budget to speak of, so we rely on free listings and we use Craig's List heavily. We appreciate Jim & Cyd giving us play as a "news item". But when we adveritse in "mainstream gay" publications, we get little in return (we spent $200 on an ad in the Pride Day program this year -- which was seen by thousands -- and we got no reaction whatsoever).

Just an outside observation Mike, but from what I have seen on your "group's" web site and such, it seems like you are interested in a very specific type of person with whom to hang out with. Maybe the reason you're not having much luck getting other types of people to show up at your functions is due to the nature of your philosophy, and not the advertising medium. Your web site says that your group is a close-knit group, and with the membership cost, that could be putting people off a little bit. I personally consider myself rather butch, and manly, but I don't know that I would be intersted in joining your group, simply because some of my friends are not butch, and they are still a hoot to hang out with. Ok, enough of my solitary soapbox. Back to the topic. Maybe you should go into conjunction with other gay groups around the neighborhood, and promote Monday Night Football parties as a group function for the entire community, sponsered by not just RG, but by all the different groups combined so everyone can feel welcome. Your website could be pretty intimidating for someone who is of the more Lavender Persuasion. wink

Well, yes, MSU, the group philosophy does put some people off. We are meant to be a group for guys who feel out-of-place in "mainstream" gay culture. We do events that most gay social organizations don't do because they assume gay men don't like going to hockey games, or playing poker, or what-have-you. And either that appeals to ya, or it doesn't. We realize our target audience, membership-wise, is relatively small, which is fine with us. The guys who DO join are very happy to be in a group that has a point-of-view. And $35 a year is actually quite cheap.

However, the groups we invited on Monday are all people who know us and like us anyway, so we were just disappointed at the small turnout.

[ September 24, 2003, 12:42 PM: Message edited by: RGMike ]