Featured in Venues Today: Pointstreak 5050 Engages Front Row to Take Raffle to Next Level

Deal offers new avenues for advertising

by R.V. Baugus
Courtesy: Venues Today (November 5, 2013)

Pointstreak 5050, whose event-based electronic game-day raffles are held in some 45 professional sports venues across the United States, has embarked on a different kind of 50/50 deal after entering into a partnership with Front Row Marketing, the marketing, sponsorship and branding arm of Philadelphia-based Comcast-Spectacor.

“As we’ve grown, we’ve seen the need to expand some of our departments and that’s why we got involved with Front Row Marketing,” said Kevin Lovitt, president of 10-year-old Toronto-based Pointstreak 5050. “We see this as a tremendous sponsorship opportunity where Front Row can use their expertise to pitch to companies and organizations looking to market to all the people who are buying those (raffle) tickets."

Added Scott Secord, president/CEO of Pointstreak Sports Technologies: “We’ve been successful with some of our clients already but will look to Front Row Marketing to engage those corporations to not only get the venue exposure but also the branding and couponing aspects of the sponsorship opportunities that can exist."

The premise behind Pointstreak 5050 is age-old in that the purchaser buys a given number of tickets for the right to later possibly have his number drawn to receive 50 percent of a pot while another organization, often a charity, receives the other half of the pot.

Aside from benefiting charities, Pointstreak sees the partnership with Front Row Marketing as a game changer because of the myriad branding, marketing and sponsorship opportunities for corporations wanting to associate with the raffle.

“The ticket becomes something that is part of the game-day experience and is unique for the sponsor because with their name and offer of a free cup of coffee or discounted food item or whatever they elect, the ticket is taken home and used in the following days,” Lovitt said. “It is not something that is just used at the venue and then discarded. If I spend $5 on a 50/50 ticket and it has a coupon on the bottom, there is value in that. It allows a sponsor to extend their brand outside of the confines of those nine innings or three periods."

Lovitt said there is also space at the top of the ticket for a primary sponsor, and the value-add for that reaches far beyond the company name on a ticket.

“When the announcer prepares to call out the winning number there will be a 15-second spot for the sponsor before the drawing, and the sponsor’s name is mentioned again just before the number is called,” he said. “Sponsors see this as a tremendous opportunity to get more closely tied in with the community.

“We think there are so many arms and legs to this. Working with Front Row Marketing and developing the right kind of package for different companies show there are so many different things we can do. Sponsors can certainly tie it in with the inventory and assets that the team has where it becomes a fully comprehensive sponsorship and not just 50/50.”

Pointstreak has taken the raffle to another technological level at venues by selling tickets from a hand-held device carried by roaming vendors. There are also stand-alone kiosks on the concourse that display in real time the growth of the pot. Public address announcements are made throughout the contest where the pot stands. The winning number is drawn late in the contest and the other half of the pot usually goes to a team’s foundation as is the case of the National Hockey League Philadelphia Flyers, or other designated charities such as the United Way, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation or the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

“There’s no shortage of groups who are always looking for and needing support,” Secord said. “A lot of good things come out of the raffle and that’s why we believe we’re seeing so much success with  it.”

“We have seen these pots grow to  $300,000,” Lovitt said. “The Flyers put their system in last year for the first time and they typically do $50,000 or $60,000 every night. That’s made it a tremendous development for a number of charitable organizations because it’s raised so much money from a fund-raising standpoint. Last year we generated over $25 million in raffle ticket sales in which half of that went to charitable organizations. In these days where budgets are tighter and so many people and communities are looking to raise money, this has been a tremendous advantage to them. Frankly, I am proudest that we have helped so many people in so many worthwhile organizations be able to put the money to tremendous causes.”

Lovitt said that some 10 days after the Boston Marathon attack, the Flyers donated all the money from the raffle to Boston Strong, the charity set up to help the victims of the tragedy. “That night they did almost $87,000 and the people overwhelmingly supported it,” he said.

Peter Luukko, president of Comcast-Spectacor and the Flyers, is enough of a fan that he can be seen on YouTube extolling the virtues of Pointstreak, the new partnership, and how the 50/50 has been a success with the Flyers.

Secord noted that the Calgary Flames of the NHL raised some $2 million through their raffles and that a significant portion went to help with relief efforts from the major flooding that hit the city and the team’s Scotiabank Saddledome earlier this year.

Another raffle that drew national media play came on July 5 when Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks had a pot reach $100,016, nearly triple the previous raffle record, with the beneficiaries the charities who supported the Granite Mountain Hotshot Firefighters and communities affected by the Yarnell fire that claimed the lives of 19 firefighters.

“When it hit $100,000 the fans started cheering so much that the batter stepped out of the box and the pitcher stepped off the mound because they didn’t know what was going on,” Lovitt said.

Lovitt added he is not aware of any cases where per caps diminish as a result of people buying 50/50 tickets.

“That seems a little counter-intuitive because you might think if someone spends $10 on a 50/50 ticket, they’re not going to buy a beer or hot dog,” he said. “What we’ve found is in most cases it keeps people within the building. As the pot grows, people will say they are going out to the concourse to get a 50/50 ticket and their friend will say, ‘While you are up get me a beer and a hot dog.’ We’ve never seen where it has negatively affected per caps and usually they have gone up.”