Every year, around championship time, the wave of free local offers ring out: Free donuts! Free coffee! Free Big Macs! Free other stuff that's not very good for you! It's a tradition almost as certain as Sesame Street birthday brawls -- when the local team is playing for a the title, someone is going to be offering up free crap. Colorado native John Keiley didn't wait that long. In a brilliant bit of self-promotion, Keiley is leveraging the Rays' success to his advantage by offering free pizza to the world if the Rays win the World Series. It's worked: Already the story has been featured in the St. Petersburg Times and on Deadspin (not to mention, you know, right here) giving Keiley's restaurant the sort of national advertising Nick Denton usually makes advertisers squeal for.
Still, Keiley isn't totally cynical. He's done this twice before; once for when the hometown Rockies swept the Yankees, -- that cost Keiley about 2,500 pies -- and once for when the Patriots went 16-0, another 1,500 pizzas. Is the payout worth the promotion? Sure. But it's also pretty cool.
