I'll Have a Miller Lite and an Order of Chizik Sticks . . .

by MaconDawg on Jul 21, 2008 1:12 PM EDT

While working on a piece regarding ticket prices/demand across the country, I came across this article from the Iowa State Athletic Department website on the hot new ticket promotion Iowa State is running.***

Praise be to Google, which leadeth us to fields of snarky fun as wide as the Great Plains. Without the world's favorite search engine, I would never have known that $99 will buy Cyclone fans tickets to the Nebraska game, along with two other contests (including your choice of either Missouri or Texas A&M), and a $20 gift certificate to Applebee's. That's right. Riblets and Big 12 football! A match made in heaven.

Now, I understand that Iowa has recently been beset by more tribulation of the natural variety than any one state deserves. Especially a state with its own brand of vodka. And I understand that ISU officials are pitching this as a way to help cash-strapped, flooded-out Iowans see some Cyclone football. It's a sterling gesture in this respect.

But honestly, can you imagine Alabama or Clemson or, heck, even Mississippi State doing this? Of course not, because south of the Mason-Dixon we may like us some Brewtus Steak Burgers (the Weight Watchers' menu, not so much), but we love college football. And unless the Army of the People's Republic of China lands at Hilton Head Island, many of us will still be willing to pay out the nose for college football tickets.

Which got me thinking: What cross-promotions would work to put fannies in the seats here in SEC country? After giving it some thought, here are a few suggestions:

Purchase tickets to any three Georgia Tech home games, get 50% off on Tuesdays at Wally's Wide World of Star Wars Costumes (excluding Princess Leia metal bikinis, you filthy rapscallions).
Purchase tickets to any South Carolina home game, get 3 minutes on the field to convince Steve Spurrier that you can beat out Tommy Beecher for the quarterback job. After all, somebody's just gotta do it eventually. Might as well be you.
Purchase Mississippi State season tickets and receive 10 minutes alone in a 12 x 12 concrete room with Sly Croom, a black bear and a bowie knife. It's Schrodinger's cat, Starkville style. Which is to say, bloody and slathered in barbeque sauce.
Purchase Duke season ticket packages. . . . . .No, that's the punchline. There's really nothing more humorously absurd than being a Duke football season ticket holder.

In the words of Austin Powers, yeah capitalism!!! Obviously, these really only scratch the surface. Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments.

***Apparently the gang at Black Heart Gold Pants got to this one before me. As you can imagine, the result is hysterical.

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Everyone ends up going to Hickory Park anyways

I’ve been to Applebees like twice in my life.

by CrossCyed on Jul 21, 2008 6:49 PM EDT 0 recs

Well, FSU is doing a cross promotion with Tallahassee Community College to try to fill up its student section. No really, it’s true.

1) If you ever needed an illustration of how far FSU has fallen, here it is.
2) That would never happen in the SEC outside of maybe Vandy.

by Year2 on Jul 21, 2008 6:54 PM EDT 0 recs

Tech

Doesn’t Tech already do promotions like this? Something like 3 games with hot dogs and cokes for the games.

by fotodog on Jul 21, 2008 8:38 PM EDT 0 recs

Five or six years back . . .

. . . in a season in which I literally fell more than 50,000 points shy of being eligible to buy extra tickets to the Auburn game (Auburna delenda est!), I received in the mail a Georgia Tech season ticket order form addressed to “T. Kyle King or Current Resident.”

Despite periodically having to dynamite seats out of Divine Brown Stadium at historic Hugh Grant Field, the Techies still can’t fill up a stadium except when we’re there. (Freddy Jones says the Institute wouldn’t allow aerial shots of Georgia-Georgia Tech games played in Atlanta because they would have revealed the sea of red in their arena.)

There’s a good reason for this, of course. When they designed Mary Tyler Moore Stadium at historic Lou Grant Field, the architects set aside enough seating for all the students, then doubled the number of seats to allow room for their dates.

At the North Avenue Trade School, where the geekitude reaches the level of riding the M-Train, having five-year-long on-line relationships with internet girlfriends, and advertising for kissing lessons on CraigsList, that really wasn’t necessary, now, was it?

Go 'Dawgs!

by T Kyle King on Jul 22, 2008 12:37 AM EDT 0 recs

When I was in high school ...

I took the SAT multiple times (hey, I had two older brothers and understood what benefits were available from maximizing one’s score). Anyway, remember when you signed up for the test, you’d fill in some ovals with a No. 2 pencil to have your scores sent to three colleges? I’m hard-pressed now to explain why, but one of the times I took the test, I had my scores sent to Auburn. They sent me an acceptance letter without my having applied. How’s that for a desperate promotion to fill seats?

by NCT on Jul 22, 2008 8:50 AM EDT up 0 recs