Gridiron Bash News & PR
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EML - ENTERTAINMENT MARKETING LETTER
03/10/2008 "Gridiron Bash" Pairs College Football With Concerts, Sponsored Contest
Sports-focused agency MSL is bringing top music acts, FOX Television coverage and scholarship dollars from USA Today to colleges nationwide next month for the inaugural "Gridiron Bash," promoting college football's fall 2008 season.
MSL's Shawn Garrity says his company sought to create a three-day "master event" around colleges' so-called spring football games, in which the Division I schools introduce their fall football squads to students. Traditionally held over a six-week period, the exhibition games already attract hundreds of thousands of local fans. But Garrity expects Gridiron Bash (slated for April 18-20) to amass an aggregate nationwide audience of 1 million and generate as much as $15 million in revenue for participating schools.
Some 20 colleges and two dozen music acts will participate in the Gridiron Bash — the first night of which sees performers such as Kelly Clarkson, Counting Crows, Fall Out Boy, Fergie, Maroon 5, Taylor Swift and ZZ Top play at pep rallies of schools including Arizona State, Kansas State, Penn State, Rutgers, Texas A&M, and the universities in Colorado, Iowa, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah. Garrity says MSL secured the talent through the industry's leading
agencies, noting that some of the colleges, while consistently selling out their stadiums for football games, have never hosted conventional music concerts. Consumers can purchase tickets for local Gridiron Bash concerts at www.gridironbash.com.
Integral to the event is a fan contest, "The USA Today Bash for Cash Series," in which the school with the most fan support over the weekend will receive $1 million for its general scholarship fund. (Second- and third-place schools will receive $500,000 and $250,000 respectively.) The winning schools will be determined by combining the total attendance at their Gridiron Bash event with the number of fans who call or text in a vote for their school to MSL via mobile phone.
USA Today — which owns 10% of the Gridiron Bash property, and which is lending marketing and promotional support — will present the winning scholarship checks during a live broadcast on FOX Sports Network from the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, IN, on April 20. FOX also plans to air highlights of Gridiron Bash events and regional spring football games on April 19.
Garrity, a former college football player himself, says that MSL is looking to stage similar events during the fall 2008 college football season around major school rivalries. CONTACTS & CONNECTIONS: MSL Sports & Entertainment, Shawn Garrity, President/Partner; 24-32 Union Sq. E., 4th Fl., New York, NY 10003; 212-228-5558; sgarrity@mslproductions.com.
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