New football marketing program targets fans

Peter Mazza, JE '01, Than Merrill, JE '01, and Jake Fuller, BR '00 came up with the idea in the summer of 1999. The Yale football team, in the course of Head Coach Jack Siedlecki's second year, had won five more games than the previous year's team and placed second in the Ivy League. But the three Bulldogs, who were in New Haven for the summer, felt the athletic department could take some steps to improve attendance and awareness of Yale football.

JULIA TIERNAN/YH Peter Mazza, JE '01, was one of the brains behind Yale football's new marketing scheme.

After brainstorming over lunch breaks from their summer jobs, the three decided to take their ideas to athletic director Tom Beckett. "We went in hoping to get a meeting with Mr. Beckett," Mazza said, now the team captain. "Not only did we meet with him, but he agreed with all of our ideas. It was amazing how he extended himself for us."

With the athletic department's support, the football team pitched in at the end of the preseason camp—on their one day off—hanging hundreds of posters for the team. "We postered around campus, and then we also went into surrounding towns," Mazza said. "We made a push all the way up Dixwell [Ave.] into Hamden, and the same with Whalley [Ave.]." The athletic department also held a pep rally before the Harvard game on Cross Campus last year. The extensive marketing campaign helped push the average home attendance to 27,518 for Yale's Ivy League championship season in 1999—the second highest attendance in Div. I-AA.

This year, Yale hopes to lead Div. I-AA, according to Associate Athletic Director Wayne Dean, head of athletic marketing. To make this a reality, the team again postered extensively, banners advertising home games were hung on Tower Parkway, and the athletic department paid for the erection of 32 billboards around the state—from near Union Station to Milford to Old Saybrook—touting Yale football. In addition, the team is blanketing the nearby area with advertisements through its corporate partnerships with the New Haven Register, Channel 8, and four radio stations: WELI, WPLR, WWYZ, and WYBC.

The tag line for the marketing campaign is "Yale football: an Elm City tradition." Mazza, who grew up in nearby Cheshire, Conn., embodies the slogan. While growing up, he attended Yale football games whenever he could. "I'd really like to see us get the people of New Haven involved," he said. "Football is kind of unique; there are only five home games, and they draw a large crowd. It's one of the few opportunities to have a real gathering of folks from the community and people from Yale."

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