Sue Bird Racing - Best On Field Promotion!

The Seattle Storm's Sue Bird Racing just won GameOps.com's Best On Field Promotion Award for 2011! File this under awards I didn't know existed but are still really nice to get! 

Props to Matt Heuer who dreamed this whole thing up.  Here's what ESPN-W had to say about our work this past season;

The crowd has plenty of reasons to stick around, many of them uncommonly creative. There's Sue Bird Racing, where contestants step into ostrich mascot costumes and have to make layups before returning to squat on their "nest" of basketballs.

There's a trivia contest video of a famous movie, except with a Storm player inserted into the scene. This night's was "The Sandlot," with Bird uttering the familiar line: "You're killing me, Smalls."

"I can't believe he gets the players to do some of the things they do," Storm CEO Karen Bryant said of game operations whiz Matt Heuer, 29.

With the financial future of many WNBA teams still uncertain, it's time to get creative to get people in to the arena.  The Storm is really making the right moves by taking chances with things like Sue Bird Racing and other in-game video series' that help create buzz around the games, and the team. 

And check out the end of this bloopers reel to see the players' reactions to putting on the bird suits... it took probably 10-15 minutes before we could get everyone to quit laughing and start shooting.