Generating Excitement at Your Game

Here is an idea that is used at the University of Notre Dame to provide promotion for most Fighting Irish sports. This may be something that you can use at your school to increase attendance at the most important Conference home games of the season.

All varsity sports with the exception of football and men's basketball at Notre Dame select their most important/significant home event of the year, to be deemed a "Gold Game." Football and men's basketball are excluded at Notre Dame, as their student and general attendance figures have reached capacity. The marketing staff, in conjunction with the SAAC and head coaches, agrees upon dates of all Gold Games. It is important to keep Gold Games spread throughout the year and to ensure they do not conflict with scheduled school breaks or holidays.

Once dates have been selected and confirmed, the marketing staff assigns two varsity teams to attend each Gold Game. When possible, a team will be assigned to a Gold Game that does not occur during their traditional season of play. Football is divided and assigned as "offense" and "defense" due to its sheer numbers. Teams are asked to resolve conflicts amongst themselves (ex. SAAC members discuss at a meeting and switch or trade assignments).

With Gold Game dates and assignments in place, the rest of the program defaults to the marketing staff. In order to be most effective and efficient, one Gold Games promotion was created, which could easily be applied to any sport.

* A stand-alone ad is run in the student newspaper.
* A Gold Games link can be found on the athletic website.
* At each event, 100 Gold Games t-shirts are distributed to fans.

Since its inception in 2002-03, the Gold Games have made student-athletes much more aware and supportive of each other and take pride in attending their assigned Gold Games. Especially on campus, the faculty and staff have been wonderfully supportive of these events, knowing the impact their attendance may have on this one "big game."