Benny’s Buddies
At the beginning of the 2024-25 season, one of our players, Sam Bennett, decided to launch a charity where he would sponsor a pet adoption at the Humane Society of Broward County for every goal he scored called “Benny’s Buddies”. I launched the campaign on social media using promotional images from his visit to the Humane Society.
Throughout the season, every time Bennett scored, I would mention something about the “buddies” or doing it for the cats and dogs to continue to drive momentum for this initiative. Additionally, the movement picked up steam outside of social media with fans bringing signs to games mentioning it. The campaign helped to build a positive narrative around Bennett, allowing every goal he scored to be a really good thing even as he was one of the players our opponents hated most.
By the time we reached the playoffs, any time Bennett scored, our social media was flooded with mentions of Benny’s Buddies. He decided to continue the campaign throughout the entire post-season which proved to be incredibly fortuitous as he went on to score 15 goals and win the playoff MVP award. This campaign proved to be a very successful, season-long thread that was embraced by our fans.
