One of the best things about minor league sports is how creative teams get with promotions to get fans in the building.
Fans aren’t flocking to G League arenas or Minor League Baseball stadiums just to take in the games on a nightly basis, so sometimes you have to do special promotions or theme nights to get the people in the door. Star Wars Night is a classic in baseball, and often times, teams try to play into pop culture nostalgia to draw folks in.
The Grand Rapids Drive, the G League affiliate of the Detroit Pistons, will do so on Friday by having “Flint Tropics Night,” in which the Drive will wear some spectacular jerseys modeled after the Tropics from the movie Semi-Pro, starring Will Ferrell.
We're rocking these groovy teal & orange jerseys this Friday at @DeltaPlexArena for Flint Tropics Night! #WeAreGR
Tickets >>> https://t.co/FLL3pD2GpX pic.twitter.com/5kIHwEOEFy
— Grand Rapids Gold (@NBAGrandRapids) January 15, 2019
The jerseys are tremendous and, hopefully, will be made available at some point. Special jerseys aren’t new to the G League — there were SpongeBob jerseys a year ago in Delaware — but these aren’t just great novelty items, they genuinely look awesome. Semi-Pro is a classic and hopefully they get Ferrell there to perform “Love Me Sexy” at halftime.
It’d be really great if the Rapids decided to, say, sell the Tropics-inspired uniforms and donate the profits to helping Flint as it continues to deal with the water crisis, because if we learned anything from Jackie Moon, it’s that we need ELE: Everybody Loves Everybody.
