Sports Authority Contest Bonds Players, Coaches - Sports Authority Inc.'s marketing campaign

Brandweek, May 28, 2001 by Hilary Cassidy

The Sports Authority is adding to its marketing campaign based around combatting the decline in physical fitness with a national "Coach of the Year" contest in which young athletes share insights about their coaches.

The program, launching this week, will be supported with national Sunday newspaper advertising, radio spots, POP and a basketball-themed direct mail piece sent to more than 400,000 homes. Kids aged 5-to-18 will be invited to draft a 100-word essay about their coach and drop it off at any of the 198 TSA stores. Each entrant will receive a free pack of trading cards.

A panel of judges comprised of Olympians Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Summer Sanders and coaches Bob Kersee and Boboy Bowden will review the entries.

The grand prize, given to the coach and the player, is a trip for four to Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex and the chance to participate in sports packages built around race car driving lessons, golf, fishing and water sports. Local winners, selected for each store, will win a TSA shopping spree.

The program is part of TSA's "Get Out and Play" positioning, introduced last year, to encourage kids to participate in sports. Other physical fitness efforts include a three-year, $3.3 million partnership with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America called "Fitness Authority."

Phil Pritchard will be in the spotlight beginning May 31 when MasterCard unveils a "Priceless" spot highlighting his job: Keeper of the Stanley Cup. As director of hockey operations and curator of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, one of his responsibilities is to chaperone the famous trophy which spends about 250 days a year visiting schools and charities as well as 24 hours with every member of the National Hockey League championship team.

The spot, from McCannErickson, N.Y., reviews the cost of the Cup's custom shipping crate, the white gloves Pritchard uses to handle the Cup when he shows it to schoolkids, and the silver polish he shines it with. As he brushes his teeth in a hotel room with the Cup behind him," spending every waking moment with hockey's Holy Grail" is "priceless."

The spot will air during the Stanley Cup Finals on ABC.

Mountain Dew is launching an instant-win sweeps dangling five trips for four to the 2002 Winter or Summer X-Games including a snowboard or skateboard lesson from one of its athlete endorsers.

Starting July 23, consumers can look under caps or inside packs of 75 million specially marked packages of Mountain Dew or Diet Mountain Dew Other prizes include ski trips, Salomon Driver snowboards and Santa Cruz skateboards.