1994 Solutions To 2024 Problems

The gambling industry keeps trying to solve its modern problems with outdated solutions.

Many traditional martial arts schools are stuck in a time loop. Traditional martial arts are one of the few activities where people hold the belief that perfection was achieved in the past, and any further evolution is heresy.

It’s 2024, but they are stuck in 1994. They run their school exactly like their teacher did in the 1980s. Who ran their school exactly like their teacher did in the 70s. Classes are structured like boot camps, with the teacher playing the role of R. Lee Ermey’s drill sergeant, an unchallengeable authoritative figure to be referred to and answered with “Yes, Sensei [or some other title].” In these schools, the strong survive, and the weak learn to “suck it up” or are culled.  

---

SPONSOR’S MESSAGE - Sporttrade was borne out of the belief that the golden age of sports betting has yet to come. Combining proprietary technology, thoughtful design, and capital markets expertise, our platform endeavors to modernize sports betting for a more equitable, responsible, and accessible future.

Learn more about what makes Sporttrade an unparalleled player experience here.

---

There’s an easy way to identify these schools. Their teaching methods are stuck in the past, and so is their approach to marketing and outreach. They have bare-bones or zero online presence. Their idea of modern marketing is adding a Yahoo/AOL email address to their business card or advertising in the local newspaper – 1994 solutions to 2024 problems.

Not surprisingly, they have a small enrollment and deceive themselves by saying things like, “You either have a lot of students, or you have good students.”

Following the pandemic, most of these schools are gone. They couldn’t deal with a months-long shutdown and refused to do online instruction. But some still exist, so if you ever encounter a school like this, run. Run as fast as you can unless, of course, that’s what you are looking for.  

Most of the remaining traditional martial arts schools sort of get it. They have a Facebook page that gets updated occasionally to complement their simple website (with an out-of-date schedule because they can’t figure out how to change it). The hours are incorrect, the contact page is their email and phone number, and you’ll need both hands to count the glaring spelling errors. Their idea of a marketing blitz is a Groupon—2014 solutions to 2024 problems. Two decades better, but still a decade behind the times.

And there are a few that get it. Their website is modern, and instead of a stock photo and an 800-word breakdown of the instructor’s martial arts lineage going back to the 1800s, it has a contact form and basic information about classes that everyone can understand. They use pictures of smiling kids and include links to their social media channels.

However, it’s difficult to tell the good schools apart from a McDojo, which is a term for a chain-type martial arts school that understands all the above but employs questionable business practices (long-term contracts, overpriced branded equipment, accelerated black belt club membership for an extra fee, and exorbitant belt-testing fees), provides mediocre to poor instruction, and promotes students too quickly – to collect those belt testing fees.

A McDojo is the AI content version of a martial arts school. To the untrained eye, it looks alright… at least at first. And this is a problem the gambling industry can’t seem to avoid.