“The Grey Cup has a long history and there have been many memorable moments over the years,” says Sheldon Lachambre – 2009 Grey Cup Festival – Director of Marketing and Media Relations “Some people have been coming to the Grey Cup Festival religiously for 20+ years, and every CFL fan has a Grey Cup game memory that is special to them!”

“These Grey Cup memories and the connection CFL fans have with each other is what makes the Grey Cup Festival such a special event. Therefore we felt it was important to implement a social media strategy and to showcase how the 2009 Grey Cup Festival connects CFL fans from East to West.”

Check out the 2009 Grey Cup Festival website to view the official press release: http://2009greycupfestival.com/news/34.html

2009 Grey Cup Festival, CFL Playoffs & CFL Fans = Excitement!!!

The 2009 Grey Cup Festival just launched a new website called Grey Cup Festival Connect (http://greycupfestivalconnect.com).  The website was based on the same concept as StampsConnect (the Calgary Stampeders social media aggregated website)(http://stampsconnect.com). By properly tagging their content, fans can upload their videos, photos and tweets and have them show up on the Grey Cup Festival Connect website.

The Grey Cup is Canada’s largest professional sporting event. A celebration of sport and culture, the Grey Cup is uniquely Canadian and has a storied history and deep traditions. The 2009 Grey Cup Festival, “Canada’s Game Calgary’s Party”, will be distinctly Canadian and showcase Calgary’s famous western hospitality.

For more info on how to get tickets to all the great events planned at the 2009 Grey Cup Festival, check out http://greycupfestivalconnect.com/tickets/

Considering that the focus of our tour is to profile the connection between Sports and their Fans, I don’t believe we could have found a better example of this than the connection between the NY Jets football team, Fireman Ed and the faithful NY Jets fans.  Fireman Ed went from being a loyal fan like many of the other fans in the parking lot that day, to an icon that truly represents the connection between the team and their fans.

In fact, just a few days earlier on September 25th, Fireman Ed was presented the game ball on behalf of the NY Jets fans for their win over their division rival, the New England Patriots. The NY Jets head coach, Rex Ryan was quoted as saying:

“He wasn’t the only fan you would notice, but I don’t know the names of everybody else,” Ryan said. “I’m sure there was Fireman Joe and everybody else out there. It was great because they’re our fans and we decided it was a little token of our appreciation to give him a game ball.”

Ryan said Fireman Ed was “all fired up” during their meeting.

“He’s expecting a lot of wins, as are our fans, and he said this is only the start and our guys understand that,” Ryan said.

Referring to the rest of the team’s fans in an interview with the team’s web site, Fireman Ed said, “Their passion is as great as mine is. There’s no difference. I’m just blessed to be able to lead the orchestra, to get them crazy.”

Video footage of Coach Rex Ryan placing the game ball into their training facility display case can be seen here: http://www.facebook.com/Jets?v=app_2392950137#/video/video.php?v=103010843046316

It truly is a refereshing site to see how the New York Jets have acknowledged their fans as a major contributing factor to their success.  The idea that an average (although passionate) fan can essentially become a part of the team brand and exemplify the connection between the team and it’s fans is an amazing story.

The connection between Fireman Ed and the NY Jets has also been portrayed in promotional videos by the NFL on CBS and in a commercial for Budweiser.

We were fortunate to be two vehicles down from Fireman Ed in our pre-game and post-game celebrations and captured a very cool video of Fireman Ed and his friend leading the charge with one more J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets.  3 AND 0 BABY!!!!

Trevor Turnbull sat down with Dani Muccio (@dani3boyz on Twitter) in Farmingdale, NY to discuss the NHL Tweetup concept.  They chatted about how the NHL Tweetup started, whether teams have truly embraced social media (and in particular Twitter), which teams are leading the pack and where she sees things going in the future.

This video is only a small part of the conversation, and there will be more clips added in the near future.  Dani had a lot of great insight to offer and is doing a great job of helping connect fans to their favorite teams in support of the game they all love.  Enjoy!!