Mark pulled up the Lightning schedule on his phone. “Tomorrow. Sunday afternoon. Three o’clock.”
“Ooh, that could work.” I was thinking out loudnow. “We’d need to open a couple of hours earlier than normal, maybe bill it as an opening weekend ‘lunch with the Lightning’ special or something. What about some kind of promotion where if the Lightning win, everyone gets a discount on their next visit?”
“I like it. What else?”
“What do you mean, what else?”
“We need more than just sports. Not everyone cares about hockey.”
He had a point. I tapped my pen against the legal pad, clicking the button a few more times and earning an annoyed glare for my effort. “What’s popular right now? What are people talking about?”
“What about that new show? It’s all over Instagram,” Mark suggested. “The gay hockey romance. What’s it called?”
“Horny Rivals?”
“That’s the one! The gays online won’t shut up about it. They claim it’s the best thing on TV.”
I’d heard aboutHorny Rivals. It featured two rival players who hated each other until their dicks decided they didn’t. It was very enemies-to-lovers, very gay, and apparently, more addictive than the ice cream shop’s special flavors.
“When does it air?” I asked.
Mark was already googling. “Sunday nights.Episode three is on tomorrow at eight.”
“Wait.” An idea was forming. “What if we did both?”
“Both what?”
“Lightning game in the afternoon.Horny Rivalswatch party in the evening. We could make it a whole Sunday Funday. ‘Come for the game, come with the show.’”
Mark hooted. “We can’t use the word come in promotions. Not like that anyway.”
“Says who?” My grin was now wide. “The gays would love it—and even if you make me tone down the wording, the idea’s solid. We appeal to the sports gays while also tickling the fancy of fiction smut readers who like their porn a lot more firm than soft.”
“You’re evil. I love it.” Mark snorted again, shaking his head. “Says here there’s ten episodes this season, and they’ve already renewed it for season two. The show’s blowing through records. We could start tomorrow and have six more weeks before season one ends.”
“That could give us some momentum,” I thought aloud. “But that brings us back to marketing. How do we get the word out? It might be a great idea, but it’s useless if no one shows up.”
“Flyers,” Mark said. “They’re old school but effective.We can print flyers and put them on cars within a mile radius, on every windshield in Ybor, Seminole Heights, maybe downtown. Think about every place there’s a concentration of pride flags where people park outdoors.”
“That’s hundreds of cars.”
“Thousands,” Mark corrected. “I’ll call Jacks. He’s an eager beaver.”
“Eager for your beaver, maybe.”
“If he wasn’t an employee, I’d drive him like a mule train.” Mark groaned. “Alas, rigid professionalism prevents me from planting my flag in western soil.”
I let out a groan of my own. “I don’t know which is worse, the mental image of you planting your flag or poor Jacks getting ridden like a horse.”
“Both make my shorts tight.”
“Jesus. Please stop.” I went back to scribbling furiously. “Flyers, social media blitz, maybe we could even—what if we scheduled posts to go out every hour until the show airs? Build anticipation. ‘Come watch the Lightning,’ ‘Don’t missHorny Rivals,’ that kind of thing?”
“Yes! Maya would love that. She’s been dying to do more social media stuff.”
“Because she’s beensoeffective to date?”
Mark ignored my jab. “Okay. Here’s theplan. I’ll call Maya, get her on the social media blitz. You work on the flyer design. We’ll get them printed this afternoon and spend tonight and tomorrow morning papering every car we can find. Come up with names of fun hockey drinks. Rod can work on a special menu for tomorrow. We’ll make this the biggest watch party Ybor has ever seen.”
