Case study: Fox11online.com's Football Challenge

Contest: Football Challenge
Media: fox11online.com

Summary:  WLUK television, now Fox11online.com, wanted to create a contest that would last throughout the football season and capitalize on the the uber-popularity of the NFL team. The contest quickly became the top revenue producer with $25,000 in advertising and sponsorship created for five months of the contest, from September through January, on Second Street Media's Upickem platform. NFL and Top 15 college markets have a big advantage in attracting big dollars.  The contest had an extra advantage:  the Green Bay Packers kept winning, all the way to the Super Bowl. What's winning worth? A 40% lift in traffic, Grant says, a great deal for Pepsi, its title sponsor. 

How the contest works: This is the basic model for Second Street Media's NFL contest, and also copied in it's Top 15 College contest. Players can sign in via Facebook to create an account, then  pick winners for each upcoming game, and  a score for the Sunday night game that serves as a tie-breaker. Each correct guess during the regular season earns one point, and in the playoffs, the games are worth more as the Super Bowl approaches.  Players can also have a linked e-mailed to their smart phones to “play on the go,” and can play from their Facebook page.

They receive a  e-mail reminder before the game to make a pick, and another one after the game to check their rankings. If they refer a friend who signs up, they receive extra points. The e-mail is another sponsorable opportunity, especially for fast food companies. 

The “Survivor Game” is an additional contest in which players pick “the one team your’re sure will win that week.” If the team wins, the player moves on to the next round. But they can only pick the same team once during the season. Whoever lasts the longest nationally wins a $500 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

Players compete against others from around the country for the grand prize supplied by Second Street, usually a trip to Hawaii, but also have local weekly prizes and a local grand prize.

This company upgraded to the Second Street Media platform in 2010, they posted this announcement a week before the contest launched, to alert players to the new features:

You can now compete for national prizes

Updated: Wednesday, 25 Aug 2010, 6:35 AM CDT
Published : Wednesday, 25 Aug 2010, 6:35 AM CDT

If you've played our Football Challenge before, you'll notice some big changes this year.

First is national prizes. We've teamed up with a company called UPICKEM to let you compete against people from all over the country. The winners each week will get their choice of any NFL Fathead poster, plus a watch. And the grand prize is a trip for two to Hawaii.

We're still giving away local prizes to people here in Northeast Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. Each week, the local winner gets an NFL on FOX hat. And the grand prize is a 50-inch flat-screen TV.

But that's not all.

We're also giving away a $100 gift card to the Packers Pro Shop. You can win that by playing our "Survivor" game. Just pick the one team you're sure will win that week. If your team wins, you move on. But be careful: you can only pick that team once during the season. Whoever lasts the longest nationally will get a $500 Amazon gift certificate.

Sponsorship revenues: The Football Challenge Bay contest is the highest revenue-producing contest at the the station. In 2010, the contest  sold the title sponsorship to Pepsi, who is buying again this year, and the local Chevy and Buick/Pontiac/GMC dealerships buy secondary advertising on the contest site for the five months, for a total of $25,000 in sponsorship revenues.  Sponsors get  the ad units within the contest pages and twice weekly eblast.

Promotions: The key on-air promotions are incorporated into broadcasts. The sports director at 5 and 9 p.m. directs people to sign–up and share with friends and the popular morning news anchors, Pat Petoniak and Rachel Nanek, both play the contest and rib eachother over who is winning or losing at least once a week, reminding viewers to sign-up.

Results: In 2009 there were 937,000 page views.  The second year, when the Packers went to the Superbowl,  sign ups rose to 8976, with 1.3 million page views, accumulative over the five months."You see the impact of winning. Winning is worth 40% increase."

Lessons learned:

2. Many large sponsors, such as Pepsi, are not trying to build the e-mail list, however, this is a great opportunity to attract sponsors who do want this list, including sports bars, prize sponsors such as home electronics companies who offer a flat screen TV, and pizza chains. Don't forget to include large visuals for sponsors on the e-blasts, too, and include mock-ups of the e-mail in promotional materials. 

3. Television has a tremendous ability to incorporate contests organically into broadcasts - and drive pageviews. We've seen print try the same tactic by having a popular sports columnist "play" and challenging readers to beat his score. Any high profile rivalries can provide promotional opportunities, especially for media partnerships, in which broadcast includes mentions and  while the newspaper partner prints the scores for the challengers. Include scores from local advertisers playing to gain more engagement for sponsors. 

4. This is a full season contest that requires an early start. However, it is also "pre-packaged" by Second Street so partnering with them is a way to quickly ramp-up. 

Many thanks to Tori Grant Welhouse, director of sales, for sharing her experiences with our members. Here's how they launched the program last year: