FRESNO, CA – On Friday the 13th the Fresno Grizzlies will host a spooktacular tribute to the most spine-chilling night of the year at Chukchansi Park.  The Grizzlies will wear special Friday the 13th theme jerseys in their series opener with the Portland Beavers that will be auctioned off following the game to benefit the Central California Blood Center.

The fifth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times, and their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year threatens calamity. The Fresno Grizzlies, unlucky enough to be scheduled for a home game on Friday, June 13th (like half of Minor League Baseball), will celebrate the night with a combination of spooky Halloween elements, an inspection of the superstitions associated with bad luck, and the horror film genre.

“The opportunity, or misfortune, to play on Friday the 13th is something that doesn’t come around very often.  We’re lucky to be able to not only put together what we believe is a top-notch promotional night at Chukchansi Park, but to partner with the Central California Blood Center, a relationship that is both appropriate for the theme, and a very worthwhile cause to support,” said Grizzlies Vice President of Marketing Scott Carter. Carter then proceeded to walk under a ladder, break a mirror, feed his black cat, and say, “Boo!”

Whether purely coincidental or not, Friday the 13th has been unlucky for the Grizzlies on the field.  The team has posted a 1-5 record on the spooky day since the franchise’s inception in 1998, with the lone win coming just last season.  Fresno will try to buck that trend this year wearing special Friday the 13th theme jerseys, in which every player on the field will be wearing #13.

Another simple and effective promotion from the Grizzlies.

I think the charity connection and the ability to weave in the actual record of the team on previous Friday the 13th’s make this promotion seem well planned and meaningful.

If you have noticed that Fresno is getting featured on the blog often, it’s because they have one of many teams who have added info @ gameops.com to their PR mailing list. We get a full PR hit from Fresno about all their promotions…it helps too that Fresno is out front with great promotions and marketing.  Please feel free to add us to your PR list so we can promote your promotions here as well.

Have a spooky night and a great weekend.

-Cudo

It’s like a season long tutorial on how to keep a promotion you do every night interesting: blog.letteddywin.com.

Last season the winner of the Best On-Field Conest or Promotion was the Washington National Presidents Race, featuring the Mount Rushmore Four. Each game during the middle of the 4th break the four costumed Presidents race to the finish. One of the many charms of this contest is that they have never let Teddy Roosevelt win.

One fan (now a small group of fans) built a website tribute to the race and their demand to “Let Teddy Win!”. The site includes game-by-game coverage, photos, video, and a tracking of all the ways the team comes up with to foil Teddy’s attempt at victory.

I can’t think of any other game night promotion with a fan web-site devoted to covering it. I have a mild addiction to checking it, it’s not unhealthy yet, but it is an addition. You can see it here.

This promotion has been nominated again for the 2008 Best of Awards. You can nominate any promotion here on the blog, or email us anytime on the site. We accept nominations all year long.

–Cudo

Most Fierce NFL Mascot Competition: Staley Da Bear vs. Packers

There aren’t too many rivalries with a richer history than the one between the NFL’s Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers.

We present second-seeded Staley Da Bear, who gives the outwardly appearance of a furry, loveable mammal. Don’t let that friendly disposition fool you though. Brown bears are tough and mean, and would surely pounce all over the Packers’ mascot if given the opportunity.

Green Bay doesn’t have a mascot? Are you kidding me? Indeed it is true, and so the best thing we could come up with, which best symbolizes the Green Bay Packers in our mind, is the very popular cheesehead. Better yet, we offer a block of foam cheese being placed into a package.

CBS Sports has an on-going poll trying to sort out the fiercest mascot in the NFL.

While I like content building, fan-loyalty testing polls as much as the next web dork….but this is really dumb.

Most fierce mascot contest? While I understand this is just supposed to be fun content on the site, how about judging them on something every mascot is aiming to be….like entertaining, value-adding, or brand-building….but fierce?

And while I am ranting about this poll, who did the seedings? Roary the meek Detroit Lion is a #1 seed, while “Raider Fans” are a #7 seed? And the Saint Louis Rams with “no mascot” are a #4 seed. It’s hard for me to log in and vote every day when the folks at CBS Sports were a little thoughtless in their seedings. I trust they weren’t expecting anyone to take this quite so seriously….but then why run a 32 team bracket?
I don’t want to effect your vote, but Stanley is clearly more fierce than a quarter wheel of sliced cheese, so I voted for Stanley Da Bear. You can vote here.

–Cudo

Thanks (or blame) to fierce blog-reader Joel L for this link.

ALTOONA- The Altoona Curve, Minor League Baseball’s champions of fun, light-hearted ballpark theme nights announced this spring that it was planning a “Salute to Procrastination Night” at Blair County Ballpark, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Double-A club.

Today, the team is announcing that the promotion is still planned for sometime before September 1st, but that meetings to discuss the details of the event have been repeatedly put off until a later date.

“We’ve admittedly hit the snooze button several times when it comes to planning the details of our Salute to Procrastination Night, but we’ll get to it soon enough.” said Curve General Manager Todd “Parney” Parnell. “When we finally sit down to sketch out this promotion you can bet it will be worth the wait.”

The Curve’s summer college interns, the club’s resident experts in putting off projects until a later date, will be very involved in the planning process for the promotion, but the group has asked for more time to work on the details, thus illustrating a popular form of procrastination known as “Student Syndrome”.

The club will continue to provide updates on the status of “Salute to Procrastination Night”, assuming continued attempts to meet about the promotion’s details take place.

Perfect.

–Cudo

Thanks Glen Gower, MiLB.com and Benjamin Hill.

I have been adding videos on the YouTube Video Section (yes I consider it “work”) and I found a couple that really stood out.

Here is a video piece from the Phoenix Suns on their January 2008 Retro Night. Its a great example of touching all the game elements with a promotion to really make it powerful.

You can read more about the promotion on the Suns web site.

This promotion will also be nominated for the 2008 Best Game Night Promotion, as a great example of a well-thought out promotion.

–Cudo

This is my 300th blog entry, and as is the tradition I take this opportunity to rib my friend Ed who initially suggested the blog idea.

While I love the blog, it has emerged as a large chunk of my efforts….so I like to make sure I thank him on the milestone posts for adding to my workload. (see post 200)

If you like numbers we are approaching another milestone at Gameops.com. Sometime around June 10th we will post the millionth banner ad view. To offset some of the costs of maintaining the website we have an ad banner on the top of each page (going back many years). I religiously track the number of views and was excited to have done a million of anything (but not excited enough to give that it’s own blog post).

So, thanks a million Ed. I look forward to giving you more grief in post number 400.

–Cudo