Both Delta Airlines and Alaska Airlines to "celebrate the Seahawks’ playoff status" are "sponsoring contests tied to the playoff games," according to Roberts & Gillie of the Tacoma NEWS TRIBUNE. Alaska Airlines during the postseason is sponsoring the "12th Fan Rescue," which invites Seahawks fans "who don’t live in the Puget Sound area to submit videos, stories and pictures that demonstrate Seahawks pride in their locale." The three best entrants "and their companions won free airfare, game tickets and hotel accommodations" to the Seahawks-Saints game last Saturday. The contest "continues this week for the NFC Championship Game." The airline also is giving passengers wearing QB Russell Wilson’s No. 3 jersey in Seattle "priority boarding privileges." Meanwhile, Delta, the Seahawks' official airline sponsor, "secured the privilege of renaming the club level at CenturyLink Field as the Delta Sky360 Club in a deal with both the Seahawks and the Sounders." Delta also has "created a scavenger hunt-style game in which the locations of kiosks to sign up to enter the contest are posted on Delta’s Twitter page." Delta GM of Corporate Communications Anthony Black said that the grand prize in that contest is "a pair of tickets anywhere Delta flies as well as a $500 certificate for Seahawks merchandise and two tickets to next year’s opening game." Both airlines said that they "will roll out even more attractive prizes" for their contests should the Seahawks make the Super Bowl (Tacoma NEWS TRIBUNE, 1/16).
MAKING NOISE: In Seattle, Bob Condotta writes Seahawks FB Derrick Coleman has "become a sudden Internet and television-commercial sensation from an advertisement for Duracell batteries that tells his story of overcoming partial deafness to make it to the NFL." The ad was "published on YouTube last Friday, and as of Thursday afternoon had been viewed more than 5 million times." Coleman said of the response to the ad, "I knew I was going to be able to touch some people, and that the hearing-impaired and deaf community -- that it would get to them" (SEATTLE TIMES, 1/17). Coleman is scheduled to be profiled on NBC's "Nightly News" Friday night (THE DAILY).
