#16 Seeds Have a Chance to Win 300,000 Pizza Slices!
Monday, March 17, 2008 at 06:22PM 
Pizza Hut recently came up with a great campaign to entice #16 seeds in the 2008 NCAA tournament. The pizza chain is offering all four (4) of the #16 seed teams the chance to win nearly 38,000 one-topping Pizza Mia pizzas for their respective universities (the equivalent of 300,000 slices of pizza). If any of the teams can pull off 'the upset of a lifetime', all active students and faculty members will be eligible for free pizza.
What a great promotion to capitalize on excitement on the eve of the tournament. While the chances of redemption are highly unlikely (a #16 seed has never defeated a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament), this promotion will provide Pizza Hut with great visibility across the nation. Since 1985, none of the ninety-two (92) #16 seeds in the tournament have escaped with a victory. Will there be a suprise in 2008?
Here is a list of the #16 seed matchups in the 2008 NCAA Tournament:
- Mississippi Valley State vs. UCLA (3/20)
- Portland State vs. University of Kansas (3/20)
- University of Texas-Arlington vs. Memphis (3/21)
- TBD vs. the University of North Carolina (3/21)
Reader Comments (2)
This isn't going to do anything for Pizza Hut. A 16 seed is not going to beat a #1 seed, so this is really a wasted effort for a chain that is still trying to catch up to Dominos, which has a better overall value proposition (pizza in 30 mins or less). I fail to see how this will make a difference, unless a huge upset happens...
Disagree with Jason on this. It's a clever concept by Pizza Hut; it hardly costs them a dime to pull this off and if one of theses 16 seeds does happen to win, the PR bonanza will be huge.