Promotional Events
Events I created in my time with Indy Eleven
Racing Indy Night
Now in its 5th year of promotional use for Indy Eleven, it was a partnership I personally put together with IMS which started in 2019. “Racing Indy FC” was the original desired name for Indy Eleven from the supporters, so it works both as a nod to our city & its racing heritage along with our supporters.
Our largest promotional night to date in Merchandie revenue (& continues to be)
Longest lines we have ever had for merchandise (see below)
First time Indy Eleven was featured in the 500 Festival Parade (over 100k in attendance)
Experimeted with kick-off time to allow fans to prepare for the race the next day.
Airplane banner over the parade to promote the home game!
Great PR assistance from local partners every year.
The Experience
The Game Day Posters
The Merchandise
Coach Martin Rennie & GK Evan Newton take the Honda Indy Car 2-seater
Bob Ross Night
Bob Ross filmed all of his “Joy of Painting” episodes in Muncie, Indiana, & we always look for ways to tie the lcub back to the community in which it plays for. Here are some ways in which we activated this promotion, alomg with Emmy Award winning Nate Heck of Artrageous with Nate.
Iron Maiden
“2 Minutes to Halftime”
What also made this great were the fans of Indy Eleven we know were big Iron Maiden fans we were able to surprise meeting one of their musical idols in founder and bass player, Steve Harris. Afterwards, we all had beverages together and he invited us all the next night to the show at our local, outdoor venue.
Indy Eleven’s Front Office & Coaching Staff vs. Iron Maiden & the Road Crew. What an experience & it drew in new fans & interest to the club! I put together this initiative with their touring agent in the UK to make this happen. It ended up a fantastic PR play for Indy Eleven as it lit up all of the soccer world bringing attention to our club.
Grateful Dead Night
First Professional Soccer Team to host one!
Soccer fans and Dead Fans are very similar, and after talking to sveral MLB teams, we knew we had a great idea. I had a LOT iof internal pushback on this idea only to have it become (at the time) the largest night we had ever done in merchandise sales.
We offered a Premium poster pack with tickets as a pre-sale item, and the posters alone were on Ebay the next day for 4x their paid value. We had a Dead cover band play prior, and tye-dye & good energy was interwoven throughout the evening thorugh the experience along with great music all night!
Indy Eleven Cares
Our commitment to our community
During the pandemic, we wanted to find a way to both support our partner Community Health Network in an impactful way. We created the Indy Eleven Cares line with procedes supporting the Community Health Foundation, which provided housing and support for trauma/emergency nurses so they did not have to go home and expose their families to sickness.
I build this initiative working remotely from home, as we did not sit idle during the pandemic, but found it to be an obligation to our fans to drive more engagement.