Football fans score with a ‘Fan-tastic’ Lotto promo

UCF football now has a presence at convenience stores across Florida thanks to the Florida Lottery's Fan-tastic College Football Promotion.

With the purchase of a lotto ticket priced $10 or more, fans receive vouchers to enter a drawing for free UCF merchandise, home-game tickets and a grand prize of $10,000.

The promotion is in its third year, but now UCF has been let in on the action.

"We got such good feedback from all of our players," Jackie Barreiros, director of public relations at the Florida Lottery, said in reference to the past years' promotion participants. "People are so loyal to football in our area, and we wanted to expand it to all the schools who have football programs."

Seven other Florida universities are part of the promotion this year, including: Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, Florida State University, the University of Florida, the University of Miami and the University of South Florida.

Barreiros said that three criterion were considered for schools to make the cut: the size of the football program, student-body population and the number of Bright Futures Scholarship recipients enrolled.

The Florida Lottery has sponsored the Bright Futures Scholarship since 1997 and has since aided nearly half a million students attending Florida universities.

As of 2010, 199,166 out of the 1.5 million scholarships the Florida Lottery awarded went to UCF students.

When a lottery ticket is purchased, all revenue is put into an educational enhancement trust fund, which is appropriated toward the Bright Futures Scholarship Fund, according to legislative recommendation.

Lotto players can participate in the promotion from Aug. 29 through Nov. 30. Participants will be entered into one of four preliminary drawings for prizes such as home-game tickets, UCF football t-shirts and $25 scratch-off cards.

All lotto players are also entered into the grand-prize drawing, which includes a $10,000 cash prize, bowl game tickets or 2012 season tickets.

The four grand-prize winners will be announced on Dec. 1.

"It's not a real unique promotion," Dr. William Sutton, UCF sports management professor, said. "They're trying to get people that have never bought lottery tickets before to buy them and attract new affiliation."

With the 2008 economic recession came a decrease in lottery ticket purchases, Barreiros said, causing to the company finding new ways to draw in new players.

"I think our players are really smart in the sense that if you look at the economy a couple of years ago, our sales dipped a little bit," Barreiros said. "They realize that this is just an entertainment, a discretionary investment. Everywhere we can, we promote playing responsibly."

Sutton believes the promotion will be renewed, as lottery players that are UCF students or alumni will take advantage of the opportunity to support Knights football.

"It teaches people about the lottery and gets people to buy tickets, and by doing those two things you're supporting the sponsorship that they've purchased with UCF," Sutton said.

The football program does not receive a paycheck for being involved in the promotion. The partnership allows UCF football to garner more excitement for this year's season amongst students, alumni and new fans.

"It'll help promote this developing football program and put UCF on the map not just in the Orlando area, but across the state," Barreiros said.