As you might have heard by now, the plunging economy is starting to trickle down even to the sports teams that we love so much. For example, the Arena Football League is considering shutting down for the 2009 season; NASCAR’s CEO was begging fans to use sponsors’ products during the sport’s annual awards night; and the Detroit Pistons have sold out their seats, but many ticket holders are staying home. A recent study showed that 58 percent of people said they are cutting back on entertainment spending, and 78 percent of those people said that means fewer sporting events. What’s a team to do when times get tough like these? More and more franchises are discovering creative, meaningful marketing alternatives.

The bottom line for sports franchises is that they need to put as many people in seats as possible for any given event. Like the airlines, it’s better to sell a seat at a discount than to tip off with it empty, and the bonus is that people who attend events often rack up significant bills for soda, hot dogs, and souvenirs. So smart teams are figuring out ways to ease fans’ pocketbook pain and still give them the chance to escape the daily grind at an event. A few examples that I’ve found recently include:

• The Birmingham Barons Minor League Baseball team held “Petrol-Palooza Nights” over the summer, in which you could buy a ticket for whatever a gallon of gas was going for.
• The St. Louis Blues of the NHL are holding 11 “Fannie & Freddie Mortgage Saturdays” with a drawing in which one lucky fan will get his or her mortgage paid for four months. This helped the team sell an extra 500 tickets.
• The NBA’s New Jersey Nets are giving free tickets to out-of-work fans who post their resumes on the team’s website—and they are sharing these resumes with their sponsors (such as Chase, Coca-Cola, and Amtrak).
• The Arizona Diamondbacks encourage people to nominate needy families for free season tickets.

I really like that these teams are in touch with their fans and realize that they need to adjust their marketing approach to be more meaningful. Not only does this have a chance of helping them maintain revenues during tough times, but fans remember that their favorite team paid attention to their needs during tough times. This, in turn, creates true, long-term fans of any brand.