The St. Louis Rams beat the Washington Redskins 30-16 on Sunday, Sept. 26, and several Webster University students attended the game at the Edward Jones Dome free of charge.
On Sept. 23, two Rams representatives, Grant Lees, a marketing intern, and Nick Bender, a ticket representative, set up a booth near the University Center and gave out a pair of complimentary tickets to interested students.
Lees and Bender stayed on Webster’s campus from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and gave out a little over 150 pairs of tickets, said Sarah Rouland, the St. Louis Rams Corporate Responsibility Coordinator.
Rouland said Rams’ employees gave away tickets at several other St. Louis area colleges, including St. Louis University, Washington University, Maryville University and Lindenwood University. Rouland said that through the promotion, over 1,000 pairs of tickets were given out to college students.
“Some of those universities lack football teams, so it’s an opportunity for us to be the home football team of some of the universities in St. Louis,” Rouland said.
Lees said Webster was very accommodating and, overall, seemed to show a real interest in attending the Rams game. Lees added that in comparison to the other schools the Rams’ reps visited, SLU was the only school to have their tickets be given away faster, and much of that had to do with SLU’s larger student population.
“We called with short notice, and getting everything set up, you guys did a great job,” Lees said. “And then the student reaction was great. We had a lot of kids excited about it, and a lot of people just stopped by and were very surprised that we were giving away tickets to students.”
Lees and Rouland said the idea to give away tickets to college students came about at a Sept. 17 meeting. The game was the Rams Community Day, and the Rams organization felt it would be a good idea to get a younger demographic involved.
“Obviously (with) the Community Day, they wanted to find some niche where we could get a large amount of tickets out to the audience that we were trying to get to the game,” Lees said. “So the college thing popped up and it kind of escalated from an idea into a full plan. It just was an idea that seemed right.”
Students that wanted the free tickets first had to write their names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses on a piece of paper and give the paper to the Rams representatives. Students were sent an e-mail on Sept. 25 that informed them of various activities that occurred the day of the game, including live music at a tailgating party near the Dome and a free koozie for the first 10,000 fans that entered the Dome.
Rouland said that the Rams organization did promotions for the ticket giveaway on some of the college’s Facebook pages. E-mails were also sent to some of Webster’s student organization leaders; these leaders then had the opportunity to pass the information along to members of the groups.
Lees said he had a good time interacting with Webster students and he hoped that they would enjoy the Rams game.
“We realize that not everybody has the financial means to come to all of these games,” Lees said. “So we just would like to get all of these kids out here and have them experience what a great time it is to come to the Dome and see the guys play. We were happy to get them some free tickets.”
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