September 2016 - American Sweepstakes

The Sky’s The Limit Adventure series from Montana Tourism comes to an end with the Painting Glacier sweepstakes

The Big Sky Country stories campaign from The Montana Office of Tourism and Business Development is coming to an end. The campaign was initially launched back in April which I wrote this post about it featuring the Montana’s the Sky’s the Limit Sweepstakes. They launched part 2 of the campaign in July which included The Sky’s the Limit Picnic Sweepstakes.

The last episode in this film series is called Painting Glacier which includes another sweepstakes giving away another Montana adventure. This tourism campaign has focused on telling Montana Big Sky Country stories to draw in visitors. Their short film series features ordinary people who are chasing their own brand of adventure. In this last episode we follow Dennis Farris as he paints his perspective on Glacier National Park, one brush stroke at a time. You can watch the short video about Dennis here.

Day 1 of this adventure you arrive in Kalispell, MT and pick up your rental vehicle at Hertz. You explore downtown Whitefish and have lunch at the Buffalo Cafe. Next you visit Whitefish’s Going to the Sun gallery to view some local art and and then on to the Montana House gallery in Apgar Village. Your first two nights are at the Village Inn with dinner at Eddie’s Cafe and Mercantile for one night and the Glacier Highland Restaurant for the other.

Day 2 you hop on a Red Bus Tour of the West side of Glacier National Park and then have Lunch at Rising Sun’s Two Dog Flats Grill. Day 3 you start with breakfast at Eddie’s Cafe and then drive to Swiftcurrent Lake for an afternoon of boating, hiking or relaxing in the sun. You spend your third night in a cabin at the Swiftcurrent Lake Motor Inn and dine with the rest of camp at Nell’s, the inn’s onsite dining room.

Day 4 your Glacier National Park experience ends with a winding drive along historic Going-to-the-Sun Road to the East side of the park. Along the way are sights including Logan Pass, St Mary Falls and Sunrift Gorge. Dinner is at Many Glacier Hotel where you spend you last night.

There were almost 18,000 entries for the first sweepstakes, Open Road, in which the grand prize was awarded to a Susan Masterson from Winterhaven, Florida. The second sweepstakes, Picnic had over 20,000 entries, and the grand prize was awarded to Ryan Baughan from Lupton, Michigan. So we’ll soon see who is the lucky person to win this last adventure

The Dream Fan Experience Sweepstakes at Camden Yards ends tonight

I am switching over to write about the beginning of the end of the 2016 MLB season from writing about the start of the 2016 NFL season last week. Once the calendar turns to October it will mark the end of the MLB’s regular season, then the start of the playoffs and ultimately the World Series. Now I have to disclose before I go any further that I am a Boston Red Sox fan. I was born in the Bronx and watched many games at Yankee stadium with my Dad, who is the reason why I have become a Red Sox fan. He did not like the “big money” at that time behind the Yankees and it has stuck throughout the years.

So we were extremely happy when the Red Sox swept the Yankees in a four game series that started last Thursday and ended on Sunday at Fenway Park. They came from behind in each game! Now they are in Camden Yards in Baltimore in a four game series against the Orioles who they have been trading first place with in the AL East. The Red Sox won the first two games of the series and are now five games up on the Orioles. The Toronto Blue Jays are right behind them as well at four games behind.

David Ortiz, Big Papi, has been having a tremendous season which he had said is his last. So it would be really special to see the end of his baseball career with a World Series win. Ortiz broke open a tight game last night with a three-run homer in the seventh inning, and Boston beat the Baltimore Orioles 5-2 for its sixth straight victory.

Big Papi doing what he does best. #LloveTheGame pic.twitter.com/6XiZG52zCi

— MLB (@MLB) September 21, 2016

Which brings me to talk about the Dream Fan Experience sweepstakes that we’ve been assisting the Baltimore/Washington DC Ford Dealers run. It coincides with the Orioles home games at Camden Yards, with the first one being on July 22 and tonight, September 21, is the last game that will be promoting the sweepstakes.

Participants enter by attending one of these selected Baltimore Orioles home game and registering for the sweepstakes by proving their contact information and answering a few questions related to Ford via iPads at the Ford Dealers booth. Then they must also take a test drive at a local Baltimore/ Washington DC Ford Dealer at least 48 hours before one of four drawing dates throughout the sweepstakes period. A list of all participating Ford dealers are provided in the rules.

The final drawing will take place on September 24 or 25 and that winner will receive a trip for two people to the Orioles vs. Yankees away series taking place September 30 – October 2. The trip package includes round trip train tickets to New York, 2 night hotel accommodations and two tickets to each of the three games at Yankee Stadium. The prize package is worth $2,500. The other three drawings centered on the Orioles home games and the prize packages included the winner throwing out the ceremonial first pitch, pre-game on-field access experiences, diamond seats, a suite night, a behind the scenes tour and a meet and greet with an Orioles player.

So I won’t be routing for the Orioles tonight, and hopefully that last game series between the Orioles and the Yankees may possibly be only for a Wild Card spot. That is assuming the the Red Sox have clinched the division by then. Right now the Chicago Cubs are the only team that have clinched a playoff spot. A World Series between the Cubs and the Red Sox would be interesting!

NFL sponsors have started running sweepstakes for chances to win tickets to Super Bowl 2017

Week 1 of the 2016 NFL season has begun and now has it’s winners and losers. The teams have 15 more games to play before the playoffs, so all us fans are still fairly hopeful that their team will get there this year. My team, the Buffalo Bills, started with a loss to the Baltimore Ravens and either team didn’t look so good. So I’m still hopeful that they’ll look better. Please!!

In fact the Bills play the Jets this Thursday night which will be the first game that Twitter will live stream. Twitter for the first time is selling ads for a live sporting event. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced back in April, via a tweet, that Twitter had won the rights to stream 10 Thursday Night Football games for the upcoming season. This shocked many in the sports world who thought the NFL would pick another partner, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, or Verizon. So this is a major test this week for Twitter, as well as the Bill and the Jets, who by the way lost their first game as well.

Every new season many companies will run sweepstakes promotions giving away tickets to that year’s Super Bowl. In order to use the NFL and Super Bowl logos and trademarks a company needs to be an official sponsor of the NFL. Many companies will try to get around this by calling it “The Big Game” or something similar, however, the NFL has been policing this more and more each season. We normally get many inquiries from companies that want to run a sweepstakes that offers a chance to win tickets to the Super Bowl and we do ask if they are a sponsor and if not, inform them of this.

Ford is the Official Truck of the NFL and they are running this year The Toughest Ticket sweepstakes and the prize pretty awesome. The grand-prize winner will not only win a VIP trip to the 2017 Super Bowl taking place in Texas. They also win a brand-new 2017 Ford Super Duty truck with a custom NFL design worth $69,000. This sweepstakes is open till January 22, 2017.

I wish everyone a great NFL season and let the best teams win. I’m not going to bet this year on the Bills finally making the playoffs, but I’ll be watching and praying! You never know.