MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL - The Minnesota Lynx today announced that they will honor current and past members of all branches of the military during their Military Night Celebration on July 3 when they host the Phoenix Mercury.
The celebration will include the singing of the National Anthem by Sgt. Jennifer Kruse alongside the color guard provided by the University of Minnesota’s ROTC program.
Members of the military will be honored during the first quarter of Tuesday’s game. During the second quarter, the Minnesota Lynx along with the Minnesotans’ Military Appreciation Fund’s Co-Chair and Founder Michael Gorman will present four Purple Heart recipients with a grant from the Minnesotans’ Military Appreciation Fund and the team’s Heroes in the Making award.
Military members and their families will also receive complimentary tickets to the game.
Good connection with the patriotic July 4th holiday and perhaps a way to broaden the base of WNBA fans in Minneapolis.
Many teams have also used pre-game for a swearing in ceremony for new recruits. Often its hard to know the depth of the promotion through a press release.
As we often talk about with promotions, connecting promotions across as many aspects of your fan experience is key. Does the mascot have a skit or dress in military fatigues, do your ushers pass out American flags or wear flag lapel pins, do your players film vignettes relating their thanks or military experiences, is there a concourse booth for the military recruitment offices?
Fun story sent to us from Migs in New Jersey. An ESPN writer applies the same tests used on other Hall of Fame voting to weigh Mr. Met’s worthiness to join the Mascot Hall of Fame.
Mr. Met for the Hall of Fame?
By Howard Megdal
The Mets announced this week that Mr. Met is one of 12 nominees for induction to the Mascot Hall of Fame this year. While popular sentiment would dictate that Mr. Met should be voted into the Hall, a fairer way of evaluating his candidacy would be to apply Bill James’ Ken Keltner Test, a list of subjective questions devised by the sabermetric guru, to the mascot’s career in blue and orange. Voting is taking place through Sept. 6 at mascothalloffame.com.
9. Is he the best mascot at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but not in?
When the other nominees include Youppi!, a mascot so passionless that his support failed to keep his team in existence, as well as the felonious Mariner Moose, it is clear that Mr. Met is the class of this class.
Orlando, FL - JacobDavis Productions (JDP), the worldwide leader in stadium card stunt production, is creating the world’s largest card stunt for Sprint Nextel at Bristol Motor Speedway’s (BMS) Sharpie 500 on Saturday, August 25. Involving 128,000 race fans, the card stunt promotes The SprintSpeed™ Million sweepstakes. To date, the largest card stunt ever produced involved 119,000 people at the Daytona International Speedway.
“This particular card stunt is very exciting for us because it is the largest ever produced,” states Joe Kivett, president of JDP. “Card stunts are a unique way to get the entire audience involved; and they do like to be involved. After 16 years of doing this, I still get goose bumps when I see over 100,000 sports fans hold up cards all at the same time to form images in the bleachers.”
The audience members will be given one card to produce two card stunts. The first card stunt will display an American flag design during the National Anthem and the second card stunt will show a SprintSpeed™ Million design a few moments after the National Anthem. JDP will be working with 300 local high school Navy ROTC groups to place the colored cards on audience member’s seats the morning of the race. Due to the Food City 250 race the night before, the team will have just five hours to place 128,000 cards before the gates open at 1:00 p.m.
(more info at www.cardstunts.com)
Congrats to Joe Kivett and JacobDavis for this record setting promotion. We interviewed Joe back in April 2002 and he walked us through a card stunt, which is an amazing process. The inteview also has a few photos of card stunts.
In an earlier blog we also highlighted a quick card stunt and a computer generated card stunt from a beer commercial (click to see the videos on the previous blog). If you have never seen a card stunt in action, it’s perhaps the greatest interactive visual effect.
Card stunts are a pre-planned, coordinated sequence of actions performed by an audience, whose members raise cards that, in the aggregate, create a recognizable image. The images they create can range widely and, through careful planning, the same cards can create a number of different images by alternating how the cards are held up. (wikipedia)
Another week, another special to celebrate our 9th year: This week we have some mascot specials. Mascots are, of course, near and dear to Gameops.com. We have a lot of great mascot content on the site, including our Mascot Page.
I thought this was fun: Gameops.com is listed as a Terrorist on Wikiality, which is a Truthiness wiki based on the Colbert Report.
Category:Terrorist
Take special care to memorize the names on this list, as they are enemies of America; they are terrorists.
Call your local police or FBI field office or speak clearly into the closest potted plant to give the NSA all pertinent information regarding these terrorists.
The wiki entry clearly explains how Gameops.com hates America….which is pretty funny. If you are wondering what this is all about, you can read these blog entries for more info:
On Feb 28th Colbert Stephen Colbert informed the world that “Gameops.com is the big time”, just before coming down hard on Gameops.com for naming a Canadian as Best Mascot in 2006.
Despite the harsh scolding and being labeled a terrorist, I still enjoy The Colbert Report.
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL - The Minnesota Lynx today announced that they will honor current and past members of all branches of the military during their Military Night Celebration on July 3 when they host the Phoenix Mercury.
The Mets announced this week that Mr. Met is one of 12 nominees for induction to the Mascot Hall of Fame this year. While popular sentiment would dictate that Mr. Met should be voted into the Hall, a fairer way of evaluating his candidacy would be to apply Bill James’ Ken Keltner Test, a list of subjective questions devised by the sabermetric guru, to the mascot’s career in blue and orange. Voting is taking place through Sept. 6 at mascothalloffame.com.
World’s Largest Stadium Card Stunt
Congrats to Joe Kivett and JacobDavis for this record setting promotion. 
Another week, another special to celebrate our 9th year: This week we have some mascot specials. Mascots are, of course, near and dear to Gameops.com. We have a lot of great mascot content on the site, including 
I thought this was fun: Gameops.com is listed as a Terrorist on Wikiality, which is a Truthiness wiki based on the Colbert Report.