Oakland A's Fan Pack

Earlier last week I received an Oakland A's fan pack. The package they sent included a colour photo of Daric barton, a bumper sticker, a letter about the A's Elephant mascot, and (randomly) a 2006 Upper-Deck card of Eric Chavez.

To order your own Oakland Athletics fan pack, send an e-mail to: fanfeedback@athletics.mlb.com

Originally posted Dec 12th, 2011

Toronto Blue Jays Fan Pack Arrived!

Received another fan pack in the mail today, this time from the MLB Toronto Blue Jays! The envelope didn't include much, just a 7.5x11 print out of the 2012 schedule and another schedule printed on a thicker paper stock. Still a very quick response and something I may use as I would like to fly to Toronto next year to catch a game. Now I have to make the decision of which team I'd like to see them play against!

To contact the Toronto Blue Jays, you can write to them at: Rogers Centre One Blue Jays Way, Suite 3200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5V 1J1, or send them a message through this link

Originally posted on Nov 29th, 2011

Toronto Blue Jays' Fan Pack (with their new logo!)

Status Update on Fan Packs

After only a few days following my online requests for fan packs from various sport teams, I received 8 replies. I think I sent something like 70+ e-mails for fan packs, so I am currently sitting at roughly an 10% reply rate. Anyways, from these 8 replies only 2 said they would send me a fan pack, which is a bit more disparaging. What is truly disparaging though is that the principle reason most teams refuse to send out a fan pack is because I live in Canada! This is most common in MLB teams who refuse to send fan packs across the American border. I find this bizarre as it works counter to marketing ambitions of growing the organization's fan base. Furthermore, Canada HAS a MLB team and one would think that MLB as a whole would try to promote their product as much as they could in Canada so that there are more fans, a healthier fan base for the existing team (the Blue Jays), and eventually be able to expand the MLB teams to more areas in Canada.

From the 8 responses I received, the MLB teams Indians and Braves both said they cannot send fan packs outside of the USA. The Yankees however said I could mail a postcard to their team in exchange for a fan pack, but I feel that they forgot to mention that this applies to only US residents. I also received 5 responses from NHL teams. The Bruins wrote that they cannot send fan packs to individuals living outside of the US. The Senators said that they do not send out fan packs at all because of the high level of requests they have received in the past. The Predators took a different approach, where they wrote that they do not mail out fan packs but instead e-mail an electronic form of the fan pack, which included Predator printouts of their logos and other graphics, and a copy of their team schedule. Ending on a more positive note, the Canucks and Flames organizations wrote that they do offer fan packs and that they should arrive in 1 to 2 months time.

Some of the graphics that the Predators sent me in the electronic fan pack.

Fan Packs & Other Web Freebies

So I recently discovered that you can get free stuff over the internet! OK, I might be a little behind the times on this 'discovery', but it's still new to me! What I found out was that there are ton of organizations you can e-mail and ask for free 'fan packs' to be delivered to your doorstep. Not every organization will do so and nor will they arrive in the same space of time. However, I figured it was worth a shot.

I started my quest for 'free stuff' by e-mailing every NHL team, MLB team, CFL team, and the majority of the NFL teams to inquire about receiving fan packs. When and if these packs arrive in the mail I will photograph the contents of the package and post the information here along with the team's contact information so you can do the same!

I am also slowly spreading my web of catching free stuff by mailing letters to various celebs, including athletes and stage stars. Again, I'll post the success stories here! Wish me luck!

***The following posts about fan packs & such were originally posted on my other blog Pickled Peanuts, but I decided that it made more sense to have these posts on my Sport /Collectible Card blog. So here we go!