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Raise a Cheer for Sports-Themed Incentives February 08, 2008

By Leo Jakobson

When New England Patriots cornerback Ellis Hobbs returned the second-half kickoff 108 yards for a touchdown in the team's opening game this season, fans advertisement at Jillian's Billiards Club in Worcester, Mass., erupted in cheers, and not just because the run set an NFL record, or even because it contributed to a win over arch-rivals the New York Jets. advertisement

No, fans watching the game at Jillian's, part of a national chain of 15 clubs, were congratulating one of their own, a patron who had been randomly chosen to win $5,000 if such a runback—rare, but not unheard of—occurred.

"The promotion is a lot of fun," says Mike Grosser, vice president of marketing for parent company JBC Entertainment. "It brings the guests in, gets them excited and generates a lot of word of mouth. It's what sets us apart from our competition."

The promotion was the work of Dallas-based SCA Promotions, which designed the contest and provided the prize coverage—essentially insurance that pays a winner's prize money. SCA runs thousands of these sports promotions each year, ranging from small-scale like the one at Jillian's to a $1 million prize for an out-of- the-ballpark hit during the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

SCA offers turnkey promotions for every type of sports event imaginable (as well as many non-sports promotions), but focuses on developing customized solutions, says Lisa Lantz, vice president of SCA. The cost of a promotion boils down to three key factors: The prize amount; the likelihood of a win; and the number of times the prize is up for grabs.

"Typically the cost of the promotion comes in between two percent and twenty percent of the actual prize value featured—but where it lands on that scale Our Readers Like depends on those three parameters," notes Todd Overton, SCA's senior account manager. "If a bar wants to offer a $10,000 winning prize for every baseball MOST POPULAR | MOST EMAILED game, that's going to be expensive, because there are a lot of baseball games. But if they just offer the prize on Tuesday nights—a typical slow night—it makes Tuesdays special, draws bigger crowds and greatly reduces the fee."

Lantz adds that the company often recommends budgeting a few smaller prizes that will definitely be awarded to make sure people at an event-based promotion like Jillian's see a winner.

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