MavericksAs part of the Dallas Mavericks Fan Appreciation Night held at the team’s April 19 game, American Airlines gave out more than 20,000 airline ticket vouchers good for one free, round-trip ticket anywhere that American Airlines flies to or from Dallas Love Field Airport (which includes the cities of Austin, San Antonio, Kansas City, and St. Louis).An additional 1,000 ticket vouchers were given out to fans watching the game from home via a text messaging promotion. This is considered to be the largest-ever free ticket giveaway promotion. (team PR).Wow. This is an incredible giveaway.  First for sheer value, it has to me unprecedented.  Even at $100 a ticket (which is probably low) that is a $2 million dollar prize giveway. 

I like this also for a couple more reasons.  First, the sponsor connection is spot on.  Nuff said.

Second they took this the next step with the cell phone/text messaging connection was inclusive, interactive, and also had its own sponsor connection.  Finding innovative ways to thank fans (which may mean people who rarely actually attend games) shows that the Mavs were taking those extra steps to find ways to go the extra mile.

This will be nominated for the Best Game Promotion award on Gameops.com.  Nominations are accepted all year long on the message boards.  If you see something outstanding or do something you are proud of, please don’t forget to nominate it for the awards.

We compile nominations on the boards and via email all year.  In November our panel reviews everything they have seen along with all th nominations to determine the best of awards.

Comments on the promotion welcome here…or on the message board.

-Cudo