Everyone has a Bucket List with the things they want to do before they die. I thought it might be interesting to compile my Bucket List of Game Operations and Entertainment related things I want to experience before I die (or at least before I get really old and wrinkly).

If you have ever been stuck in an elevator with me or taken an overnight camping trip (and who hasn’t?) you’ve probably heard by rant about how the real test of someone’s marketing prowess is if they can turn a negative into a positive. Here’s an example of just that from the Giants.

I am back with a quick peek around sports promotions. With several baseball leagues wrapping up the 2010 season, along with the WNBA there has been a flurry of Fan Appreciation Nights. Here are some of the most notable promotions from the last 3 weeks.

The talented Phoenix Suns Gorilla has updated his website and it’s worth a look. He’s part of a growing trend in the NBA to brand the mascot website with a custom URL and create a mini-website for the character within the team’s web platform.

We’ve been stop and go with our popular Tic-Tac-GO! game for the last 6 months. A production limitation limited the size of the playing pieces available this summer. The good news is that Tic-Tac-Go, is back, with full size 36″ square signs and free shipping.

This is such a great promotion. It’s an easy celebration and a way to pile some attention on yourself for setting a record and a fan for being part of it.

The Yankees Hope Week touched one special fan and the story was followed by the NBC Nightly News. A reminder of how much influence teams have over their fans and how meaningful games can be for fans.

Transitions are part of life, so when they come it’s always nice to look back and where you’ve been, what you accomplished and where you are headed….so we look back and forward as one of our Staff transitions on in life.

Notes on how to smear your promotions across your entire presentation, as well as the key to making each of your promotions seem as important to your fans as it is to you.

I am planning to take a couple blog posts this month to talk about some of my favorite content. Today I was surfing the site and came across this Premium Spotlight, posted around 2000: Grow your own Bat Night.

As noted in last week’s blog (Kiss Cam), I took in a game at the new Target Field in Minneapolis and was blown away by the experience. So it was no surprise when the new ESPN Ultimate Team Rankings for Fan Experience were announced.

We are getting great feedback and a lot of traffic for our in-depth look at Live Races (this month’s featured content on Gameops.com). If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s recommended reading. Here’s a fun video and our (admittedly) partial list of races we covered.

This weekend I took in a game at the Minnesota Twins state-of-the-art Target Field. I was really struck by a new twist on the old standard Kiss Cam.

I would say I get paid extra when I am able to link one monthly content piece to another, but I don’t. See if I can pull it off this month regardless of my income.

This month we are offering a special price on our Dry Erase Boards, with the pre-printed sports field graphics.

It’s a shed load of mascot tricks, quips, and back flips… We’ve got the demise of the Olympic Mascots, an honorary mascot inductee, and a very Lucky dunk… But wait, read now and we’ll give you two awesome videos!!! So, grab your Nyplex gloves and let’s go!

When one of our clients asked if the Cruzin Coolers would be appropriate for use on ice….we checked, double check and then we got video confirmation from Darth Vader.

With many basketball, football, and hockey teams in the off-season I thought I would drop a note about some good summer reading, game ops style.

Find out how the Reds turned a negative into a positive when a promotion turned south.

There is a great promotional tie-in running through professional baseball this summer: T-Rex dinosaurs throwing out the first pitch.