Get Your Preak On: All-you-can-drink beer promo

Cleveland tried something like this at a baseball game back in 1974 with legendary results. Now a jockey club is trying a similar promo. From NESN.com:

Having unlimited beer for a day for only $20 sounds like a good deal to a lot of people, but for some, the deal that the Maryland Jockey Club is offering at Saturday's Preakness Stakes is not a good idea.

For $20 dollars, patrons to the Pimlico Race Course will receive a 16-ounce beer mug that entitles them to unlimited free refills for the entire course of the Preakness Stakes, The Washington Post reports. The promotion is part of a new advertisement campaign for the event headlined by the catchphrase "Get Your Preak On."

Some people feel the catchphrase bemoans the storied event and the free-flowing booze is asking for trouble.

"[It is] reducing a great, historic thoroughbred horse race to an event with sleazy overtones," New York Post racing columnist Ray Kerrison told the Washington Post.

The promotion campaign follows a stark drop in attendance to the Preakness Stakes -- from 112,222 in 2008 to 77,850 last year, according to The Washington Post. It was the biggest single-year drop in the event's history.

Read more...