Get your girl a ring – or just hoop

Guys, let this be my Christmas present to you. You won’t even owe me.

Take off work a little early on this afternoon and tell your lady – be she wife, fiancee, significant other, live-in or a first date who’s not wise to you yet – that the two of you are going jewelry shopping. And not just today – tell her you’ll go on Saturday, too.

After you revive her from fainting – surely you keep a little ammonium carbonate in the medicine chest – pile in the car and point it toward Pullman and Friel Court. Whip out your wallet and buy a couple of tickets for tonight’s game between Washington State’s women and Cal State Northridge, and a couple of more for Saturday afternoon’s WSU-Kansas State men’s game.

And when she asks you what in the Sam Dial you think you’re doing, you can assure her:

Jewelry shopping.

Because it’ll be true.

OK, it’ll be a stretch. The letter of the law, if not the spirit.

But on Saturday afternoon, the Cougars and Sam Dial Jewelers of Pullman will give away a ring valued at $13,500 to one of the lucky attendees of the K-State game – as long as he or she also attended the women’s game today and signed up for the drawing. You must be present at not only one game to win, but both games.

So, yes, technically it’s not so much shopping as it is gambling. Which may have even more appeal for you than basketball, right?

Welcome to sports marketing in the new millennium.

You know about marketing – also known as imagination, novelty, putting a new shine on an old shoe, thinking outside the box. Or – if you borrow the devil’s thesaurus – entrapment, bribery, bait-and-switch, scam.

Since in many precincts – and Wazzu is certainly one of those – it is no longer enough to simply hang out a sign that says, “Game tonight,” and expect to draw an audience for a basketball game, or volleyball or baseball or indoor lacrosse, college and professional teams have been forced to “market the product.” That is to say, find a reason other than dunks and defense to entice the customers through the door and hope that once they’re inside, they’ll like what they see and will want to come back.

In sports these days, you go to a promotion and hope a game breaks out.

Baseball has this sort of thing down to a science. The Spokane Indians’ summer calendar is packed with enticements, from cheap hot dogs to being Manager for a Day to winning 10 grand tossing baseballs. The Seattle Mariners have giveaway nights to distribute thousands of T-shirts, lunchboxes and schedule magnets. Last year, the Nashua Pride of the Atlantic League commemorated the 32nd anniversary of Watergate by giving out 1,000 Richard Nixon bobbleheads. Also, anyone named Woodward or Bernstein got in free.

Hey, maybe next year they can do Plamegate. Maureen Dowd and Judith Miller could mud wrestle.

At Wazzu, they rarely deal in that much merchandise or whimsy – although last year, director of marketing Leslie Cox and assistant Marty Northcroft came up with Dick Bennett Night, in which the first 75 students got replica sweater vests as an homage to the Cougar coach’s wardrobe.

And now they’ve struck gold. Eighteen carat white and yellow gold.

“With fancy yellow diamonds on the side as well as white diamonds,” explained Sam Dial. “It’s from the A. Jaffe signature series, with a 20-carat center stone – a round, brilliant cut diamond.”

Easy, Sam. You’re talking to a guy whose ring savvy ends at the bathtub.

Dial opened up his store on Main Street in 2003, though he’s been in the jewelry game on the Palouse since 1989. Northcroft sniffed him out as a potential sponsor for WSU athletics and one day, along with associate athletics director Pete Isakson, paid a call to pitch him the usual signage-and-P.A.- announcement package.

“You know how athletic guys are,” Dial said.

I hold onto my wallet every time I reach for another piece of pre-game pizza, Sam.

Funny thing was, while the Cougars were setting their hook, it was Dial reeling them into the boat.

“It was my idea to go over the top and do something really big,” Dial said. “It’s just kind of how I do things. In marketing, if you want to create word of mouth – which is the most powerful form of advertising there is – then you have to do something above and beyond what the customer expects.”

So then, the $13,500 ring. Yours, potentially, for a few hours of college basketball. Already the word of mouth Dial seeks seems to be spreading.

“I like how it’s played out,” Dial said. “The promotion is doing well. They’ve mentioned me at all the games. I’ve heard them do some radio ads. I don’t know if they did any print or not – they should do some in The Spokesman-Review.”

Sam, you took the words …

“A full page,” he said.

Right out of my keyboard.

Isakson also senses a buzz.

“I was telling (athletic director) Jim Sterk today that if everybody who says they’re coming actually shows up,” he said, “we’d sell the place twice over.”

But of course, that’s the point – to sell the place again.

“We can do some things – not all as grand as this – and wave the magic wand two or three times a year and entice people with giveaways,” Isakson said, “but we need them to experience the product and, whether we win or lose, have a fun night of family entertainment and come back.

“That’s the tough part about marketing – it’s not a science. Sometimes what you think is the greatest idea in the world falls flat, and something you think is foolish goes over great. But I can guarantee you – one person Saturday night is going to be a very happy person.”

Guys, it can be your gal.

And if it isn’t, remember – diamonds are forever, but the doghouse doesn’t have to be.