The first 15,000 fans at MetLife Stadium will receive a Hulk bobblehead in the Toyota-sponsored promo.Marvel
Marvel Entertainment and the New York Jets, along with longtime team sponsor Toyota, this week will unveil a wide-ranging partnership designed to generate a lot of green.
The first 15,000 fans who go through the MetLife Stadium gates on Oct. 21 for the team’s game against the Minnesota Vikings will receive a bobblehead of Hulk standing on a Jets-logoed football field. Toyota is the presenting sponsor of the entire promotion, dubbed “Green Out,” and its logo will be on the bobbblehead. Five hundred VIPs will receive a larger version of the item that will produce Hulk-inspired audio.
Seattle-based BDA is producing the figurines. Financial specifics of the partnerships were not disclosed, but Jets officials said the team is paying for production and game-day costs. Toyota also contributed to the overall cost of the program.
Marvel will work with stadium officials to set the green theme throughout the day, from lighting, to the video board and music. Hulk will be in attendance and Thor will represent the visiting Vikings.
Marvel has done similar collaborations with MLB, NBA, NHL and minor league baseball and hockey teams over the past two years, but this was the first such deal for Marvel in the NFL and stands out in several ways.
Marvel has partnered with 57 teams in major and minor league sports for more than 70 Marvel superhero day events held or scheduled from January 2017 to December 2018.
Toyota, a Jets partner since 2004, will be displaying a Hulk/Jets-themed 4Runner at the stadium that day and at area Toyota dealers this fall.
Additionally, Fabian Nicieza, a Marvel writer and Jets fan known for his work on “X-Men” and “Deadpool,” created a 16-page football version of the “Hulk versus Thor” story to coincide with the battle that is brewing in the comic book Marvel Universe. Ten thousand fans will receive a copy of the book that day, a digital version will be available to anyone after the game, and 55,000 other fans will receive a poster of the book cover as they leave the stadium.
The week before, when the Indianapolis Colts are in town, Marvel will help the Jets commemorate the 50th anniversary of the team’s Super Bowl III victory. An 8-page digital-only comic book, also written by Nicieza and featuring the past half-century of Jets history, will be released in four chapters in the four days preceding the game. (The comic will not be Hulk or Marvel-themed.)
Seth Rabinowitz, senior vice president of marketing and fan engagement for the Jets, said his staff had seen the success that other clubs have had with their Marvel nights, particularly across the river, where for the past three summers fans have lined up for hours before the gates opened at Citi Field to get their hands on the annual Noah Syndergaard-Thor bobblehead.
In terms of assessing the promotion, the team will monitor ticket sales after this week’s announcement, as well as eBay posts by people aiming to presell bobbleheads and posters from the game-day giveaway.
“If history is an indicator, we will generate excitement around the bobble, so we’ll definitely be tracking the earned media that this creates,” Rabinowitz said. “And we try to get people in the stadium early anyway, so from an operations standpoint, we are hoping there is a line at 11 a.m., when the gates open.”
He also pointed to another reason for the partnership: team connections at Marvel. The company’s president, Dan Buckley, is a Jets fan, as is Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada, whose father helped build Shea Stadium, the team’s early home.
