14 Regrettable Professional Sports Promotions

Sports fans have never needed any extra incentive to go see their favorite team compete live. Often the spirit of competition, home town pride and family bonding experiences are reason enough to take your buddies out to the ball game. Too often however, team management believes that they need to offer "promotions" or hold "give-aways" in order to fill the seats that don't already hold die hard fans. Some of these promotions can be fun. After all, who doesn't enjoy a free bobble-head doll for the car dashboard? Unfortunately, some of these promotions that stadiums hold have been terrible ideas and met with utter disregard or, worse, lead to riots and trashing. Below are arguably the 14 worst stadium promotions of all time:

Seat cushions



In 2005, attendees of an international football match between Bahrain and Trinidad & Tobago received commemorative seat cushions as a thank-you for coming and supporting the sport. The cushions no doubt made those stadium sears more comfortable for the duration of the game, but when a crucial goal was disallowed at the very end, the cushions became weapons of protest. Raining down from the stands came so many cushions that the Bahraini military had to be ushered in to restore order to the event.

Ball Night




The scene was Dodgers stadium on August 8th, 1995. All attendees of a game against the Cardinals received a free regulation size (and weight) baseball. The day was known as "Ball Day" and what should have been a fun day where both father and son leave with a neat souvenir turned into one of the worst displays of sportsmanship ever witnessed. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Raul Mondesi struck out. Rather than taking his lumps and acting like a stand up role model, he and another player exploded on the umpire, arguing the call so indignantly that they were ejected from the game. This upset caused the angry crowd to throw over 200 of the souvenir balls onto the field. The team had to be ushered into the dugout for safety, resulting in an incredibly rare major league forfeit.


Disco Demolition Night




The concept was a noble one: At Comiskey Park on Thursday, July 12, 1979, the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers were set to go head to head. In a poorly anticipated event organized by White Sox management, fans were encouraged to being disco records they no longer wanted to the stadium in exchange for admission. During a break, the records were set to be thrown into a crate and blown up in center field.

White Sox management hoped that the event would draw about 5,000 people. Instead, a raucous crowd of 75,000 flooded the stadium, cramming it beyond capacity. The crowd drank, smoked lots of marijuana and quickly got the idea to start throwing their thousands of records like Frisbees down at the field. This act quickly turned into fans storming the field, throwing beer and firecrackers from the stands, and resulting in the last forfeit of a game in the American League. "They would slice around you and stick in the ground," Rusty Staub, a player for the Tigers, said. "It wasn't just one, it was many. Oh, God almighty, I've never seen anything so dangerous in my life. I begged the guys to put on their batting helmets."


Free Ice Hockey Helmet Night



On February 27th, 2009, the Chicago Blackhawks made a mistake that several other teams on this list have made in the past. The first several thousand people to show up for the game received a free Blackhawks hardhat to wear during the event. Early in the game, Jonathan Toews tipped the puck into the goal for his first career hat trick, resulting in a massive heaving of those helmets onto the ice. After so many fans wasted their souvenirs on this display of excitement, the goal was actually called back on a technicality. As the game progressed and fans drank more, the components for yet another massive hurling of those remaining helmets began to come together. Finally in the third, Jonathan Toews scored the same hat trick, legitimately this time, and down came the helmets. The stadium likely received back three-quarters of the helmets they gave out that night. Check out the video of the first throw taking place.



All You Can Eat Seats



In the most disgusting display of over-indulgence yet seen at a ballpark, Dodgers stadium now offers "All You Can Eat Seats." For $35.00, you can stuff yourself sick of hotdogs, nachos, soda, peanuts and the like. Many people have reportedly gorged themselves to the point of vomiting on low-grade ballpark junk. Baseball journalist Neal Pollack writes that the seats were "A gluttonous orgy of stupidityâ?¦ The smell was unbearable. By the end of the game, it was like sitting in a sewer."

One reporter writes regarding his experience with the all you can eat section: "Tonight," I wrote in my notebook, "represents everything that's wrong with America. Then again, this is one of the most multicultural experiences of my life. All branches of the human family are slowly poisoning themselves happily, together, communal. I'm privileged to be witnessing the mass suicide of a species."



10-Cent Beer Night




For the first of three terrible promotions from Cleveland management, one has to question the logic behind ten-cent beer night. At first it sounds fun, sell ten ounce cups of beer for ten cents. This strategy might work for a fun night at the frat house, but at a ballpark a little bit of forethought would have revealed this idea as tragically illogical. Management would have done well to realize that that sports fans tend to get rowdy, drunk people tend get rowdy, and drunk sports fans tend to get really rowdy. Fans jumped onto the field to meet the players, flashed the cameras and mooned the bullpen. Later, when the game was tied and the people were even more intoxicated, the fans threw rocks, batteries, golf balls, chairs and various trash onto the field. There even came a point in all the mayhem that a group of attendees stole the glove off of the Rangers right fielder. After this single debacle, the American League president abrogated any similar promotions in the future, claiming "There was no question
that beer played a great part in the affair."



Cash Drop Night




At Fifth Third Ballpark in 2006, a promotion like no other was set to take place directly following a Whitecaps game. A helicopter carrying $1000.00 cash in various denominations flew in and dropped it all over the field for anyone to take. Predictably, this caused a mad dash of fans, shoving adults and children out of their path as they tried to garner as much of the free dough as they could carry. Two children wound up injured during the frenzy. The crowd trampled a seven-year-old boy and a young girl had her face pushed into the ground, splitting open her lip. Whitecaps management responded by reminding the public that these people had signed wavers for the event.


Commemorative Scarves Night




On February 6th of 1958, the Munich Air Disaster took the lives of 23 members of the Manchester United football team when an airplane crashed while trying to take off of a slippery runway. Recently, the team attempted to honor the tragedy by offering all fans in attendance of a game falling on the anniversary of the event a commemorative scarf. The gesture was meant to pay homage to those who passed away aboard the aircraft, unfortunately they ended up literally paying many of the fans who received them. A large number of scarf holding fans hocked the gifts on Ebay, a maneuver which deeply upset United. Ebay later removed the items from auction, citing a policy against "profit from human tragedy."


Minnesota Road Map Night.




When will stadiums learn? Giving every person in attendance an object that can be easily heaved onto the field is a recipe for disaster. Most fans get very emotionally involved in the game, screaming and chanting at every opportunity. Add to that the anonymity that a monstrous stadium gives people and its no surprise that the freebies often wind up anywhere but the attendees hands. When Minnesota Twins gave their spectators full sized Minnesota road maps at the door, it would not have taken Nostradamus to predict what was bound to happen. Gigantic paper airplanes came sailing down from the upper decks, littering the field and posing a danger to anyone with a set of open eyes. Given this trend to throw promotional objects from the stands, it's a wonder that the Twin's "Justin Morneau Fishing Lure" give-away went as smoothly as it did.


Lawyer Appreciation Night




The question that must be raised here is, what made the Florida Marlins management think that area lawyers needed a commemorative day at the ballpark? It is unclear exactly what this promotional event offered to fans that attended. Were all Marlin supporters entitled to free consultation? Were lawyers offered jobs with the team? Similarly confusing is that shortly following Lawyer Appreciation Night was "Certified Public Accountant Appreciation Night." The Marlins must truly love their business minded fans. Either that or they ran out of bobble heads.


Weather Curriculum Book




ESPN couldn't help but note the sheer jackassery of this promotion. Weather Curriculum Book was a day for the Cleveland Indians so special it deserved two occasions for its depressing flop. Apparently Cleveland management believes that kids who are coming to a baseball game are also dying to read about meteorology. Not to mention the fact that both the 15th and the 28th of May were weekdays where any kids in attendance were likely equally psyched about getting to skip school. Upon entering the stadium they get passed a bland book discussing the facts of the weather, and this is supposed to draw fans in droves? It seems more likely that someone in management wound up in possession of thousands of weather books and needed an acceptable way to pass them off onto other people.


Christmas in July




"Christmas in July" was a Phillies event that appeared to serve no purpose whatsoever. There were no presents and no snow. In fact, aside from a dancing line of girls in skimpy Santa suits, a saxophone playing St. Nick, and a wannabe Santa in a fat suit throwing a few preliminary pitches, there didn't seem to be much of a point to Christmas in July. A hot, bright and sweaty summer day does not, and should not, feel like Christmas, no matter how the guy standing on the mound is dressed. Just looking at those guys sweltering in their massive foam Santa suits started to make spectators feel even hotter. Here's a more pleasing idea: "Free bottle of water in July" day.


Indians Logo History Fleece Blanket




What better way to attract fans to the stadium than a free blanket commemorating 100 years of racial insensitivity? The blanket takes fans back through the team's history of logos, many of which feature the Indian stereotype, red skin, feather headdress, hook nose and exaggerated goofy grin. This "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of baseball memorabilia is a huge turn around from the Mayor of Cleveland's proposal earlier this decade. "The mayor believes [and I agree] that it is an offensive, racist symbol, and doesn't want to support it on city property," Executive Assistant Reuben Sheperd wrote in June of 2000. The proposal must never have caught on for one reason or another, and fans still show up waving foam tomahawks and looking like this.


Card Day



Fans in attendance of the last Uefa Cup in May of 2009 were each given colorful cards under their seats that, when held up in unison would form a giant team flag. This little promotion has been used countless times in the past, and the result is often little more than a cool effect for the cameras and some motivation for the players on the field. That is of course until this year when one fan decided to crumple his card up and heave it onto the field where it obstructed the path of the game ball. This "paper wad of God" as it later became known, caused a Hamburg defender to miss an easy back-pass, allowing Werder Bremen to score the game-winning goal and grant them a spot into the finals. The wad was later auctioned off on Ebay, adding insult to injury for the losing team.