Category: sports marketing (Page 3 of 5)

Who Cares if Your Team’s Colors Aren’t Green?

17 March, 2010 / Kat

St. Patrick’s Day has become big business in the sports fan wear industry. It has become commonplace for teams across sports to eschew their traditional colors for the day and promote green and white fan wear and jerseys. All levels of professional hockey have been the biggest to jump on the trend, with special fanwear for sale and given away at games, and special jerseys worn for games played around March 17th. The following are three shirts that caught my eye for various reasons.

NHL: St. Louis Blues

Last night, the St. Louis Blues mixed their St. Patrick’s Day commemoration with environmental awareness, and gave away a “Green Game” t-shirt to all fans in attendance (quite a risky claim to advertise – from personal experience, you should always give an exact number of giveaways, a la “first 5,000 fans”). The shirt giveaway was sponsored by Monsanto, a Cambridge, MA based agricultural innovation company with an emphasis on sustainable practices. This was the second year for the Blues promotion.

Shirt Grade: B I like the muted, antiquey kelly green shirt and faded style of the print. It also helps that the Blues’ team colors happen not to horribly clash with green. Kudos for using that to their advantage and not changing the logo’s colors for the holiday’s sake. Environmental awareness initiatives during games are the new “it” thing to do in sports marketing – trust me, I participate in one – but the giveaway needs to be backed up with sustained, but subtle, green initiatives, otherwise it is just a t-shirt giveaway.

AHL: Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins

The Baby Pens (speaking of, we are long overdue for an edition of The Everyone’s Favorite Goalie Watch, but that’ll be another post) are selling two St. Patrick’s Day long sleeve shirts in their online store. The 2009 edition ($20) features their mascot, Tux, skating with a four leaf clover in the background on the front. The back reads “Happy St. Patrick’s Day.” The 2010 version ($22) features the logo in what appears to be a very dark green (nearly black), with a four leaf clover on the sleeve. Long sleeve shirts are always key in that part of Pennsylvania, where the damp gray chilly days seem to out number any other weather.

Grade: C The effort is there, but the execution is not. The 2009 version is too campy, and the 2010 version shows promise, but the green seems too dark. Kudos, however, for the 2010 edition’s four leaf clover on the sleeve.

ECHL: Gwinnett Gladiators

The ECHL Gwinnett Gladiators teamed with Old Time Hockey, the same Salisbury, MA based company who partnered to create some of the NHL’s 2010 St. Patrick’s Day gear, to create a green t-shirt to sell this March. The shirt ($20 with free shipping through today) features a rather disturbed and surly looking leprechaun brandishing a hockey stick, with a small Gladiators logo by his right foot. The all-caps font is rather 1950s style, and arches above Surly Leprechaun’s head.

Grade: A This is the first ever St. Patrick’s Day shirt I would ever consider purchasing, and not just because I’m in the market for a shirt from the team where two of my most favorite former BU hockey alums play. What sold me was the 1950s fonts – I’m a sucker for fonts. Plus, I feel like Surly Leprechaun is going to hurt me with that hockey stick if I don’t like the shirt.

ACR5GWEKYTEQ

The Giveaway for Your Favorite Giveaway

11 March, 2010 / Kat

A girl’s got to be able to pay hosting fees, so a few months back UPrinting.com, an online printer, agreed to advertise on my site. No biggie – you will see their ad on the sidebar. I appreciate their help.

This month, UPrinting is providing me 100 color postcards to giveaway to one of my commenters. I design and order a ton of custom printing both in my personal life and my full-time job, and 4×6 color postcards honestly are the product I order the most of. This giveaway is super useful – you can use them for invites to a shindig (like if any of ya’ll want to plan me a bachelorette party, cough, cough – no, I’m just kidding. My bachelorette party was the Frozen Four), or use them to advertise your own website.

How could you win these custom postcards? Seeing that one of the blog’s big themes lately has been featuring funny and unique minor league promotions, I figured I would giveaway this prize to the commenter describing the best sports team giveaway you’ve ever heard of. A giveaway for a giveaway, if you will. Comment on this post with the best giveaway you have ever heard of before Wednesday, March 17th at 10pm Eastern Time. I will pick the winner based on a stringent criteria of whatever makes me laugh the hardest. If there is a tie, I’ll just draw a name out of a hat.

The winner will be notified via email, announced via a blog post, and then contacted by UPrinting to obtain their prize.

Ready? Set? Tell me those awesome game giveaways!

The fine print: One (1) winner will receive a prize of 100 4 x 6 Postcards on 14pt Cardstock Gloss. Full Color Both Sides. 3 Business Days Turnaround. FREE UPS Ground Shipping. Limited to US Residents only (sorry my Canadian friends.)

Tales from Intermission

6 March, 2010 / Kat

Your typical Chuck-a-Puck. But if a Chuck-a-Puck takes place and no one chucks a puck... (Photo: Flickr user Travis S.)

After weeks of missing live hockey because of my upcoming wedding, I am finally in the midst of a multi-game weekend. Thank goodness, because this multi-game weekend allowed me to see two of the oddest intermission events I’ve witnessed in years of attending hockey games.

Friday night, the Boston University men’s ice hockey team hosted Northeastern University in their last regular season home game. BU beat Northeastern 4-2, which would go miles towards improving their status for the Hockey East playoffs. It was a double mites team game, with both intermissions host to a youth hockey team scrimmage. The teams usually have around five minutes to show their stuff, with the announcer and music timing their scrimmage, before the waiting Zambonis rev their engines and warn them off.

During the second intermission, I was chatting with a friend and not paying attention to the mites. Around me, I vaguely heard the announcement thanking the mites for their time and congratulating them on a scrimmage well done. Briefly after, my fiance nudged me.

“They won’t leave the ice.”

And They Shall Lead Them With Jersey Gimmicks and Bobbleheads: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

28 January, 2010 / Kat

On Beantown Athletic Supporters, I briefly discuss the Manchester Monarchs and their “Diamonds Are a Girls’ Best Friend” Contest, where women are encouraged to submit their worst breakup stories to win a diamond. While I sure have some doozys, I’ll refrain from entering right now, thanks.

Yahoo Sports Puck Daddy also featured the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers’ March promotion where their team will be dressed up in special Girl Scout jerseys.

Las Vegas's Girl Scout tribute jersey (Illustration from Puck Daddy.)

Former Girl Scout me would like to point out that that jersey is based off the Junior Girl Scout uniform, which when I was a Scout, came with the option of either the sash or the vest. In true Western New York fashion, I was forced into uniform hand-me-downs, so I wore the 1979 edition – flared paints and too-wide insignia prints! (Explains a lot, doesn’t it?)

Lastly, the ECHL Utah Grizzlies will be celebrating a pair of unique promotions over the coming days. Saturday is “Guns and Hoses” night – a charity game between local police officers and firefighters will take place Saturday afternoon, and during the Grizzlies’ evening game, the team will don special “Guns and Hoses” jerseys (picture not yet available.) I thought the name of the promotion was quite suspect, until @QuickFacts, one of the sources of hockey knowledge I totally defer to, informed me that many teams have such games annually. You learn something new everyday. I’m still interested in seeing how the Grizzlies will include both police and firefighter imagery in the same jersey.

Monday night, the Grizzlies are hoping down-on-his-luck and recently jail sprung Utah resident Gary Colman will join the team for the ceremonial puck drop. “The organization has reached out to his agent and attorney in an attempt to bring him to the E-Center and is hopeful to have him in attendance Monday for a ceremonial first puck drop,” read a Grizzlies press release on Thursday. Adrian Denny, the team’s Vice President of Communications and Broadcasting added, “Gary has struggled a bit since his move to Utah, but we’d like to take this opportunity to introduce him to Grizzlies hockey.”

Something tells me Gary’s not going to be there…

The World is Not Enough…

27 January, 2010 / Kat

…but seemingly, neither is a Little League World Series, NCAA Championship, Hobey Baker, and Stanley Cup.

While watching the New York Rangers take on the Pittsburgh Penguins Monday evening on Versus, my friend Laurel wanted to look up Rangers rookie Michael Del Zotto’s exact age, so I pulled up the Rangers website on the good ol’ MacMini. A Flash overlay popped up immediately across the bottom of the page – one that included Boston University hockey alum Chris Drury doing his best James Bond impression.

chris drury

The overlay was an advertisement for the Rangers’ Casino Night to benefit Madison Square Garden’s “Garden of Dreams” foundation. The event is February 8th, and it’s for high rollers only – tickets range from $500 to $2000, and attendees must be dressed to impress.

Drury has represented his country in the Olympics, fulfilled every dream of any kid who grew up playing hockey in New England, and now he gets a picture of himself looking like he’s about to order a “shaken but not stirred martini” at a swanky bar splashed across a NHL team’s website. Chris Drury, we salute you. Until Matt Gilroy starts busting Russian spies and jumping from speeding trains, you get the award for being the most Bond of any BU Hobey Baker Winner.