Football season has begun: 8 promotions you can still run

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Even though the pro football season has started, you can still take advantage of this lucrative revenue opportunity. Here are eight promotional opportunities that you can capitalize on throughout the six-month-long football season. We have also broken down each promotion into the top ideas for high school, college and professional football, so you can pick what will best suit your market.

1. SWEEPSTAKES

Giveaways are a great way to encourage fan participation during the football season. Choose a prize that is valuable and centered around football, and your fans will jump at a chance to participate.

  • High school: Consider giving away team merchandise and fan apparel.
  • College: Offer the chance to introduce the starting players or to do the coin toss at the game, give a college weekend getaway with tickets to a big rivalry game.
  • Professional: Bolster the viewing experience with new televisions or man-cave style room makeovers, offer an all expense paid Big Game party, or consider a vacation package with great tickets.

2. TRIVIA QUIZZES

While watching a game of football, it never fails that at one point the conversation devolves into one-upping your friends in your trivia knowledge. Challenge your audience with a great football trivia quiz! Fans will be anxious to take the quiz themselves, and then share it to see how their friends hold up to the competition.

  • High school: Memorable alumni athletes, coaches from different years, state titles.
  • College: Team mascots and colors, famous players, players who went on to play professionally.
  • Professional: Big Game history and stats, coaches and managers, stadiums.

3. TRIVIA MATCH-UP

Every team has their rivals. Overzealous fans base their reputations on the outcomes of these important games and will jump at a chance to prove their knowledge on the history of these match-up games.


  • High School: Trivia centered around crosstown rivalries or championship games.
  • College: Quizzes focusing on history of college bowl games in December and January.
  • Professional: Concentrate your quizzes on some of the historical rivalries, some even 100 years old.

4. PERSONALITY QUIZZES

Another great advertising opportunity lies in personality quizzes. Unlike the knowledge-based trivia quizzes, personality quizzes are highly engaging to a wide audience – even someone who doesn't know the sport that well, can still have fun with these quizzes. These personality quizzes have a viral effect, getting shared quickly from one user to the next.


  • High school: "Which Football Position Should You Play?" or "Which Type of Fan are You?"
  • College: "Which College Mascot are You?" or " Which Georgia Southern Eagles Player are You?"
  • Professional: "Which Green Bay Packers Player are You?" or "Which Type of Tailgater are You?"

4. INSTAGRAM HASHTAG PHOTO SWEEPS

Instagram contests are a relatively new promotion style, but they are already showing a great energy and viral effect with their audience. Instagram's audience reaches a younger demographic (73 percent of users are ages 15-35), and more than half of the Instagram audience checks in on a daily basis. This makes it the PERFECT promotion to try out during the football season!


  • High School: Encourage pictures of school pride, homecoming week, and spirit week.
  • College: Try an Instagram sweeps with photos with the mascot, or favorite tailgate stops.
  • Professional: Promote a sweeps with pictures of the best tailgating parties, favorite places to watch the game, maybe even a creative post of the "biggest fan pet."

5. BALLOTS

Ballots can be an excellent opportunity for promotional success at many different times throughout the football season. These football ballots are a huge hit with fans as users can rank their favorite players and coaches, decide where is the best sports bar to watch the game, vote who has the best cheerleaders and band, and any other topic you can think of to use!


  • High school: Choose their favorite players, the school with the best field, or the best high school hangout after a team win.
  • College: Vote on the best bar or restaurant to watch the game, the best concession food, or best rally cry, best quarterback, best coach best school colors and mascots.
  • Professional: Pick their favorite place to tailgate before the game, best coach from the team's history, or even which year had the best team uniform.

7. FAN PHOTO CONTESTS

Fan Photo Contests are always very successful with football fans. With so many die-hards ready to prove their #1 fan status, it's easy to get tons of people to participate and enter their favorite team photos. If your market is split amongst two or more rival teams, consider pitting the fans of one team against the fans of the other.


  • High school: Amateur "action shot" photo contest, school pride photo contest.
  • College: Cutest little football fan photo contest, stadium selfie photo contest.
  • Professional: Tailgate experience photo contest, Big Game party photo contest.

8. BOWL & CHAMPIONSHIP GAME PICK'EM

The months of December, January and February are filled with some major football games. From state championships and bowl games, fans have quite a few can't miss games on their schedule. These game-specific pick'ems are a great promotional opportunity for the end of the football season. Fans can choose from all sorts of categories including the final score of the game, which team will get the most rushing yards, which team will win the coin toss, or which player will score the first touchdown.


  • High school: Center your questions around championship games in December.
  • College: Try to set up different pick 'ems for the different bowl games in December and January.
  • Professional: Create a pick'em centered around the Big Game.

Matt Coen is the president and co-founder of Second Street, a leading provider of private-label online promotions platforms and partner success services for media companies based in St. Louis, Mo. He can be reached at (314) 880-4902 or matt@secondstreet.com.

Coen, promotions, football
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