Review by Zack Miller in KIN 435
There is an annual game every year between Oregon and Oregon State called the Civil War. The Oregon state lottery has seen this big game as a great opportunity to cash in on some promotion by getting sponsorship on a scratch off lotto ticket from Oregon State. They tried to have the same sponsorship from Oregon, but the university’s Athletic Director didn’t feel comfortable with the idea. Instead, while Oregon State has their official logo on the ticket, Oregon has allowed promotional presence to the state lottery at each of its seven home games this year. The lottery offers a good sum of money, $60,000, for allowing the promotional use of the schools. Oregon’s IMG general manager stated that it would be hypocritical to accept the money and not allow some form of promotion for the lottery. After all, the state lotteries have given over $11 million to Oregon in the last 20 years, and over $10 million to Oregon State. I believe that the state lottery has done an excellent job in marketing and finding an easy way to use the classic rivalry game to help promote their product. The ticket is a basic two dollar scratch off and therefore is not a big expenditure for fans who want to try their luck. What is interesting is the difference in the way they have gotten promotion from the two schools. While the “Civil War” game is a state wide event, it is my opinion that Oregon actually offered a better deal to the lottery than Oregon State gives. By being able to show up at all seven home games and have a consistent presence, the loyal fans who show up at every game will realize that state lottery has an invested interest in their school. Therefore, they might be able to sell more lottery products rather than the one big game promotion that Oregon State gives.
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The question of state lottery affiliation has surfaced recently with many top schools and their football programs having to make decisions. Teams like Oregon, Oregon State and Iowa have all recently signed agreements to be affiliated with their respective state lotteries. Questions of hypocrisy have been raised as some schools do accept lottery funding from the state but choose to opt out of being used in promotional lottery games. Sales of lottery scratch games would increase in those areas if they used local university teams to market them.
Recently a lot of programs have started to jump on the lottery bandwagon but there are some that feel it is not ethical to promote gambling. Some schools do not even agree with the NCAA’s rather unclear stance on the matter. The NCAA prohibits affiliation with state lotteries at NCAA championship events but looks the other way as regards to conference and out of conference games. Their official stance is that they are opposed to all types of gambling but do realize there are financial and promotional benefits of such an affiliation. Having said that the NCAA seems hypocritical in itself as it does allow gambling at the conference level at the same time as wanting to be seen as taking the moral high ground. They are aware that some members of their organization feel that the benefits of being linked with gambling establishments such as Casino’s can help market their schools. The NCAA it is missing out on a huge revenue source here as sales of tickets from championship events would surely bring in more money than conference games.
Schools are now beginning to see the benefits of a partnership with state lotteries. With over 43 states offering lotteries, it is a huge opportunity for advertising. The marketing implications mean that both schools and lotteries benefit from the advertising as schools gain exposure from scratch cards and other promotions, and the lottery improves its public relations when schools make it know they are benefiting from lottery funding. Programs include the Bright Futures program at the University of Miami.
In all, the article highlights the opinions of schools and organizations on the partnership with state lotteries.
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