Trade Deadline....no hype?

[Greg_Di 1,036]

In most sports there is hype around the trade deadline with sports channels showing half or full day coverage of prediction and moves. In the VHL, it seems to pass by just like any other day. There might be a VSN pre-trade deadline article or post trade deadline but nothing to really get people excited for the day of the event. Half the time if I don't see it on the upcoming events section of the forums, I don't even know what day it is happening. It comes and goes like nothing has happened at all only to find out a week later via a post trade deadline article that some trades were made.

 

Now the question is how can the league hype this up? My own personal thoughts are below and might not be feasible every single season but once in a while could be good!

I know this will take effort and participation but trade deadline (even if for a few hours) should be handled like the VHL Draft. Have someone from VSN setup a twitch chat, invite some guests, interact with the chat and just discuss all things regarding the trade deadline. Discuss rumors from the GM chats, discuss potential trades that can help teams, discuss any blockbuster trades that have happened and anything in between.
 

Involve some of the players and interview them on any potential rumors of where they are going or even make up rumors just to see how the players react. The interaction with GM's and players will help with hyping up a deadline that doesn't see much interest other then for a few GM's. 

With more hype this can potentially lead to more trades during the deadlines as well. I believe (may be wrong) but last few deadlines there wasn't too many crazy moves, most of the moves were done before the deadline. With hosting a deadline day type of show / broadcast this may lead to GM's waiting to the deadline or even make moves just for the sake of getting on the show to discuss why they are making the moves and how the negotiations went down. I am sure there would be a good amount of viewers interested in the thought processes of how the GM's went about making their trades.

If Twitch is too much then have it in Discord. We have a draft central channel, lets get a trade deadline channel and start hyping it up in there. All the things mentioned above can be handled in the Discord as well. I think this could lead to more discord traffic (I am mostly forum user vs discord) but I always hop on during the draft. If there was a trade deadline channel and event, would make me login to discord and be a part of it. This might go for quite a bit other users as well.

I believe hyping up the trade deadline and having GM's and players participate will give the deadline day more coverage and lead to more user interaction for what is quite a big deal in most major sports.