Staff may be bored of the hat shuffle, but fans love it: are you bored with it, or are they?

I am completely bored by the hat shuffle.

Three hats move around the video board. The fan guesses where the object ends up. I’ve seen some version of it a million times.

And you know what?

Fans absolutely love it.

They follow along. They yell out their guesses. They look forward to it.

So keep playing it.

One of the easiest mistakes to make in sports is forgetting that the people working for the team are not the audience.

I’ve been in plenty of conversations where someone wants to pull something from the game presentation because they’ve seen it too many times.

My question is always the same:

Are you bored with it, or are they?

I’m a huge believer in evolving the show. Make the hat shuffle better. Add variations. Surprise people.

But don’t eliminate something fans clearly enjoy because the people who watch 40, 80 or 100 games a year are tired of it.

Same with music. It doesn’t matter if I like the song.

How do the fans react when we play it?

Watch your audience. Study what they love. Find more of it.

Build the experience around their appetite, not yours.