Sports writer - Grant writer

Tag: sports marketing

The Giveaway for Your Favorite Giveaway

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.)

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

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.)

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…

And They Shall Lead Them With Jersey Gimmicks and Bobbleheads: I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

In an effort to make myself post more (don’t I lead a post with that phrase at least once every six months or so?), I bring you yet another reoccurring series: “And They Shall Lead Them With Jersey Gimmicks and Bobbleheads,” a look at interesting sports promotions. I’m always noising around the web for creative event promotions, especially when the office I work in full-time is asked to collaborate with Athletics in promoting soccer, basketball or hockey games. I’m not going to always bring you the funniest promotions – Deadspin and Puck Daddy do that far better than I ever could – but I will bring you promotions and teams that catch my eye for a number of reasons.

For those of you who follow my Twitter account, you will know that I have recently become obsessed with the ECHL. Sure, as a good hockey fan, I followed the minor league a little in the past. But this year, since my favorite Terrier of all time is playing in it, along with what seems like nearly every single college hockey player from the last two years, I’m following the league with much more gusto.

bakersfield_condors_2007The ECHL’s Bakersfield Condors, located out in that Terrier-freshmen-class producing state of California, gets a lot of press for their inventive promotions. Already this season, they have held a Michael Jackson jersey night, which was featured all across the blogosphere. The Condors wore MJ styled jerseys with one white glove, and auctioned off the jerseys to benefit Children’s Miracle Network.

The promotion that caught my eye, however, isn’t as bold as the Condors’ tribute to America’s favorite petafile. The Condors announced this week their “Who Ya Bringing” program, where the encourage existing season ticket holders to bring friends by giving them a free ticket per every seat they own per month. For example, if you own two season tickets, you are eligible to claim two free tickets per month during the length of the promotion.

The hope of this promotion is to convert these guests of season ticket holders to ticket plan holders themselves. The Condors will offer $100 to any season ticket holder whose guest subsequently purchases season tickets, and $25 if a guest purchases a flex-plan. Continue reading

It’ll be okay. At least you’re not a Bills fan.

My favorite Dolph-fan called me Monday evening. (You may remember him from that entry about the NFL Draft a while back.) He was distraught. Over twenty-four hours after the Miami Dolphins lost to the rookie quarterback led Baltimore Ravens in the wild-card playoffs, and he still wasn’t okay with how his season ended.

Photo from Yahoo Sports

A sad Dolph-fan after Sunday's game. (Photo from Yahoo Sports)

After a few minutes of him telling me about a play in the third quarter that had gone awry, one that could have definitely changed the tempo of the game, he paused, looking for an encouraging word.  I didn’t know what to tell him.  I’ve been there before – as a Steve Young fan in the late 1990s, there were many early playoff exits that I just wasn’t okay with, and nothing anyone tried to console me with in the days following would make me better.  I usually didn’t recover until I would go on my self-imposed Steve Young hiatus for Lent in mid-February.  (This did include me thumb-tacking a sheet over my bedroom wall shrine to Young.  To adolescent me, this was more of a sacrifice than giving up anything else – giving up my lust of a Mormon quarterback to fulfill my Catholic religious obligations.)

So what was I going to tell the Dolph-fan? “Give up Chad Pennington for Lent?” The Dolphins shouldn’t be hanging their heads. They went from finishing the 2007 season 1-15 to winning the AFC East the next. Sure, having Bill Parcells on your side never hurts – I’m convinced that he could lead a Pop Warner team to beat an NFL team in the Super Bowl just merely by being involved.  But Dolph-fans shouldn’t stay crushed and depressed. So much progress was made, and if they hadn’t suffered some very key injuries at wide-out the last half of the season, I am sure we would have seen a different result this past Sunday.

Thus, there was only one point of solace I could share that would somewhat console the Dolph-fan.

Continue reading

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