Following up on the story in today's Daily News about the GeezerJocks who refuse to lose when it comes to competing well past their 40th birthday, we asked GeezerJocks magazine vice president of sales Bill Ferguson how he's been able to market the colorful title of the publication both to advertisers and consumers.
"If we called it 'Masters Sports Magazine,' or something like that, it would put people to sleep," Ferguson said. "You definitely remember this name because it has an attitude with the juxtaposed words. It shows that jocks don't have to be 20-year-old kids, and geezers aren't 70 year-olds collecting social security and watching 'Matlock." Our readers don't care what you call them, as long as they can kick your butt in rugby or dunk over you in basketball. That's the mindset we've all maintained, and we've had a lot of fun with it. Almost all the response is positive; for ever 20 negative responses, we have 50,000 who've subscribed, who remember us and call us back."
Ferguson, a 38-year-old rugby fanatic, notes that 70 percent of the subscribers are under 60, and actually those under 40 make up 15 percent of the readers. California is the magazine's second-biggest subscriber base behind Illinois (mostly because the magazine is based in Chicago).
"The 'Boomer' generation has been the buzzword when we start talking to advertisers, and this is the wealthiest generation in the history of the world that isn't growing old like those before them. We've had a lot of people thanking us for shining the spotlight on them and acknowledging what they're doing."
Editor and co-founder Sean Callahan (seen here interviewing Kathy Jager at the 2004 USATF Masters Outdoor Championships in Decatur, Illinois -- photo courtesy of Ken Stone) also has embraced the GeezerJocks name because "we're taking two words and putting them together in a way that you wouldn't think. A geezer isn't old and decrepid, he can kick your ass. And a jock isn't a young football player, it's whoever chooses to seize it."
The current March/April GJ issue includes a piece on those former world-class athletes who refuse to quit -- among them Jose Canseco, who's been playing for the San Fernando Valley Mets of the Men's Senior Baseball League on a team managed by Granada Hills’ Roger Clark. The August/September issue last year had a cover story on beach volleyball, focusing on how many over 40 still play it up and down the California coast.
Ken Stone, whose MastersTrack.com website has thrived since 1996, thinks that GeezerJock magazine is "catching lightning in a bottle" since many Masters sports publications have come and gone due "mainly to lousy promotion, and also bad timing." (Read Stone's opinions on this in a recent blog from his site).
"Advertisers want boomers, and GeezerJock is leveraging a potentially rich slice. It's the first to professionally capitalize on the sea-change attitude of advertisers toward the masters market."
Stone also notes that GeezerJock's key advertisers include Anheuser Busch (which sponsors the Michelob Ultra award for the year’s top geezerjocks), a Florida retirement community called The Villages, and some major event organizers like the National Senior Games Association and Huntsman World Senior Games.
"Some publications are resisting the masters movement, such as Track & Field News, which runs articles on masters-age athletes only if they’re world-class at an open level – such as hurdlers Alan Johnson (35) and Gail Devers (40) or pole vaulters Pat Manson and Jeff Hartwig (both 39)," says Stone, who says he once urged that publication to revive its coverage of Masters events but was rebuffed.
"GJ, which I liken to a Sports Illustrated for adult age-groupers, is simply riding that wave of demand. The hardest part won't be attracting readers and advertisers. It’s accommodating so many masters constituencies. You often see letters to the editor saying, “Why don’t you cover (my sport)?”
(One recent letter to GJ, from Tony Sokolowski of Los Angeles, asked: "I'm a 60-year-old avid handball player and I'm curious to know why the game of handball has not been regularily featured in GeezerJock ... how about making it a regular feature?")
"Mainstream coverage of masters sports has been growing for years," Stone continued. "But rather than look at the phenomenon of masters sports, media outlets focus on freaks of nature – masters legend Phil Raschker being a finalist for the AAU Sullivan Award, or the latest record-setters at masters nationals or worlds."

For more infomation:
=The official GeezerJock website
=An interview that GeezerJock editor Sean Callahan did with NPR radio
=Stone's MastersTrack.com independent site
=The growth of the "gray market" filled with baby boomers from a Reuters story the business of Runner's World magazine