Social Mobile App Drives Fun and Profitable Crowds into Sports Bars and Restaurants

SAN DIEGO - April 8, 2013 - PRLog -- SAN DIEGO – Arriving just in time for the crazed conclusion of March Madness, 29 Club Sports (http://29clubsports.com/) is changing the game of customer loyalty programs with a free mobile social gaming application that is sure to score with sports fans, sports bars and restaurants alike by driving social circles of consumers to merchant bars and restaurants.

29 Club Sports social gaming app allows people to create their own fan clubs or find existing merchant clubs and connect with like-minded friends, communicate privately and securely, banter about their favorite teams and players, and receive special discounts from their favorite Merchant locations. Merchants get a true loyalty program that they own and drive, allowing them to target circles with promos and events instead of simply giving away huge discounts.

“Unlike other social networking apps, our 29 Club Sports app was built to combat all the negativity of social media, such as random friending, incessant promoting, non-secure messaging and rampant sharing of your personal information with everyone you don’t want to know,” said John Townsend (http://www.29clubsports.com/about), president and CEO of 29 Club Sports Inc. “It was also developed as an alternative to the unprofitable “spray and pray” promotion strategies employed by today’s customer loyalty platforms which cheapen brands, steal margin, and endear little loyalty. Bottom line, our app creates an environment of fun with a viral effect that has mutual benefits for both the sports fan and the merchant.”

For sports bars and restaurant merchants, the 29 Club Sports app can be used to push unique, personalized offers and promos to specific social circles of sports fans – and then measure the efficacy and success of each promotion. Member merchants can get to know what’s happening within each social circle and create “events” at specific times based on a given social circle or club’s calendar. In addition to increasing sales, the ability to reach social circles with targeted promos fuels word-of-mouth buzz, helping merchants build Social Circle Loyaltytm and enticing customers to come in during slack periods of business.

"29 Club Sports has figured it out,” said Salvatore Palma, owner of Bridges (http://bridgessd.com/) Bar & Grill. “It’s much more effective and easier to use than the social media outreach and loyalty programs I was using. It lets me reach out to my customers and their friends that have interests aligned with the experience that Bridges San Diego delivers. In our first weekend, our guest counts were up considerably over the prior year and many guests told me they actually liked receiving 29 Club Sports offers from the Bridges rather than the spam they receive from others."

For sports fans, the 29 Club Sports app provides the most relevant social networking capabilities of Groupon, Facebook, Twitter, ESPN and Zynga, all centered on sports and building a circle of like-minded friends.

Once the free app is downloaded, users can:

Create their own clubs and circles or join established clubs
Play pool games like Pik’em and 29 Club
Track favorite pro and NCAA sports teams and events
View live feeds of professional and NCAA sporting events
Challenge your friends and participate in photo upload contests
Send secured and private messaging between circles of friends
Buy discounted food and beverages from participating merchants through the application and initiate their own contests, wagers and free-form challenges. Winners redeem their prize (for example, a pre-paid beer or menu item) at their favorite 29 Club merchant location by simply showing a voucher screen on their smartphone to the establishment.

Matt McGunagle, senior economics student at Cal Poly SLO, was quick to join in the 29 Club Sports fun. "I love sports and who can resist discounted drinks!” McGunagle said. “The 29 Club Sports app is an easy and fun way for me and my friends to do what we already like to do which is banter, challenge, and find ways to meet up and hang out watching our favorite teams and events. Our favorite sports bar has already invited us to come in and watch the March Madness Championship game and compete in their contest for a few giveaways."

Apple iPhone owners can download the free 29 Club Sports app from the Apple App Store (apple.com). Android phones owners can download the app from Google Play (play.google.com)

For more information about 29 Club Sports Inc. or to download the app, please visit http://www.29clubsports.com.