Yum Brands Offers $1 Million To Horse That Can Beat Barbaro’s Record
You can love or hate their fast food, but if you can say one thing about Yum brands, it’s that they know how to use public events, in order to raise buzz for their products. Sure Yum brands paid a lot more then $1 million to get a commercial on during the Super Bowl this year, but that money went into the pockets of ABC Disney shareholders instead of towards the people who brought us the game to begin with.
This year though, Yum brands is going to reward the athletes themselves and have agreed to a bizzare sponsorship of the Kentucky Derby, through a partnership with Churchill Downs. (CHDN) Financial details of the arrangement were not disclosed, but if any horse is able to beat Barbaro’s record of 6 and 1/2 lengths, then Yum brands has agreed to give a million dollars to the winner. Compared to what Churchill Downs will be taking in during the race, the $1 million is really just chump change, but it’d be a nice bonus, for an owner, on top of the winnings from the race.
At the very least, this partnership will help to raise awareness for the sport of kings. Barbaro’s fantastic run brought a lot of attention to the sport and it’s nice to see corporate sponsors lining up to help carry on the tradition. As more and and more sponsors start launching their marketing campaigns for the Kentucky Derby, it will be interesting to see if it lifts the Minus Index from the extra attention. I could see the publicity from the event bringing in new investors, but you’d also think that the smart money would have identified this sort of trend already (if it even exists).
Update - It looks like it only took about 3 hours for Yum brand’s prize offer to hit the mainstream press. The AP has a write up on the prize and mentions that this could become an ongoing event if no one wins. I bet that if you wanted to wager on anyone breaking Barbaro’s record, you could get 50 - 1 odds. If this is the case, then between the AP article, plus the blogger buzz, plus whatever coverage shows up on the social network sites, Yum just got a ton of press coverage for something that probably only would cost them $20,000 to hedge.