Greensboro Grasshoppers Announce (No) Value Night

On Wednesday, Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim made waves around North Carolina when he said that he could see “no value … none” in having the Atlantic Coast Conference’s basketball tournament in Greensboro, where the tournament had been in held in  five of the last six years. The tournament has been played in the city 28 times overall, and is slated to return there in 2019 if there is a resolution between the NCAA and the state regarding the controversial bill that restricts transgendered people to bathroom that corresponds to their sex at birth. In response to the bill, the NCAA yanked all of its championship events from North Carolina.

The Marlins’ low Class A affiliate in the South Atlantic League plays its games in Greensboro, and decided to jump on the city’s surge to national relevance by offering a promotion for the upcoming season. On Tuesday, April 11, the Grasshoppers will provide plenty of value to anyone who can produce a valid New York driver’s license. New Yorkers who show up to the newly renamed First National Bank Field will be given a free ticket, a voucher for $20 in food and drink and a pregame meet-and-greet opportunity with the team’s Hall of Fame batdog, Miss Babe Ruth.

“Contrary to what Jim Boeheim thinks, Greensboro is a great place and we want to show off our city, our ballpark and our southern hospitality to our friends from Syracuse,” Grasshoppers president and general manager Donald Moore said. “We know that not all of them are whiners and grouches like their basketball coach.”

Boeheim will be featured on the stadium’s video board during the “Whine of the Game” segment, and may be invited to attend the game in person, though that part isn’t a certainty.

“We may invite the coach to attend, although his presence will bring us no value, none,” Moore said. “I suspect he may already have plans to be at a game in New York, Washington, or Atlanta that evening and unable to come.”

UPDATE: Boy, that escalated quickly.

In response to the Grasshoppers’ promotion, the Syracuse Chiefs came up with a promotion of their own. The team’s “Jim Boeheim Added-Value Night” will feature many of the same bells and whistles as Greensboro’s promotion. Fans who present a valid North Carolina driver’s license will get free admission to Syracuse’s game on April 7. The proceeds from that night’s 50/50 raffle will be donated to the Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation, which provides funds to advance cancer research.

Commemorative T-Shirts will be given to the first 1,000 fans at the game. The 1,000 number is no coincidence, the team points out; it corresponds to the same number of wins amassed by Boeheim as a college coach. There will also be a Jim Boeheim look-alike contest during the game, with the winner receiving four free tickets to an upcoming Chiefs game.

But there’s more.

As fate would have it, Syracuse was matched up with North Carolina-Greensboro in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament. And in an even better wrinkle, the game will be played in Greensboro on Tuesday evening. To make it more interesting, the minor league teams have placed a wager on their collegiate brethren. Their bet isn’t on the result of the game, but rather on the size of the crowd at the teams’ separate watch parties for their respective teams.

Whichever party draws the fewest fans will make a donation to a charity of the winning team’s choice.

What started as an off-the-cuff comment from a hall of fame college basketball coach has turned into a perfect encapsulation of the madcap world of minor league promotions.