Betting the farm

Well, that did not end well.  My heart goes out to all my Broncos friends.  I had high hopes that they would preserver, but it started out badly and kept going downhill.  

Normally, I don't get into all of the big game hype.  Our team has been so far out of the hunt, they were looking towards the 2014 season back in November.  I am not a die hard fan like a few friends of mine who live, eat, sleep and poop the team colors.  I'm not going to name names, but those green and gold colors really stand out.  

I do watch some of the game to catch all the advertising hoopla.  Some of the commercials were funny/interesting, but, in my mind, most were lame or just plain dumb. Besides, I had already seen a number of them the internet.  Still, it amazes me on how much money it costs to do a 30 second commercial during that game.    

Speaking of costs, a lot of people lost a good chunk of coin on that game.  The one that I found interesting is a local businessman down here.    

To set up the story, I need to give you a few background details.  We have a local guy who owns a furniture place on the north side of town who has been a cultural icon down here for years.  Jim "Mattress Mac" McInvale owns a little place called Gallery Furniture.  He started out with $5000 and his own pick up truck back in the 80s selling furniture on the north freeway in one of those places were you can get your bean bag chairs, lazyboys and discount mattresses.  He now has a massive warehouse/showroom on the north side where he is selling a ton of furniture every day.  He has a sort of a carnival barker sales approach and is always at the store running promotions.  Back in the 80's, he bought some airtime on the local tv stations to run ads for his store to run late at night.  At the end of one of his commercials, he was frustrated with trying to come up with some catch phrase and wound up pulling some bills out of his pocket and jumping up and down on a mattress saying that "Gallery Furniture will save you MONEY!!!".  Seemed campy at the time, but it caught fire and stuck and gave him a cult like notoriety.  One of his key selling points is that, if you find something you like and buy it today, he can have it delivered the same day (Buy it today and have it in your home TONIGHT!).  His huge warehouse store has a restaurant (free food), ice cream for the kids, several big screen TVs, and a huge playroom for the kids.  He is a pretty savvy business expert who has built a huge business and is often speaking at the local college or event on how to get ahead in life.  He is a big supporter of the USO and donates a lot of items and money for returning veterans (big points in my book).  I've met him a few times and, despite all the hype, he is a real nice guy.  He is big into the community and is always donating furniture or money to people in need or organizations who need it.  He has helped with scholarships at the rodeo, sponsored charity events, and always been an interesting character to follow.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's go back two weeks ago to the championship games.  Mac made an interesting proposition:  if you come to his store and buy $5000 worth of furniture and have it delivered before the championship games, you can bet on the two teams who will win the championships.  If your two teams win, you get your purchase for free.  Turned out that almost 80% of the people who participated bet that the Broncos and Seahawks would win.  And Mac lived up to his promise.  Wound up costing him $600,000 that weekend.  That bet was not covered by insurance so it came out of his pocket.  Needless to say, there were a lot of people questioning his motives or his sanity.  Afterwards, he was a good sport about it and took it in stride but did say that he didn't expect the turnout to be so great and wouldn't be doing that again any time soon.  

Well, never say never.  Mac must have had a change of heart or drank too much because starting last week he came out with a new bet:  If you come in and buy $6000 worth of furniture and have it delivered by game time and, if the Seahawks win, you get it for free.  No strings.  Needless to say, that bet did not come out as he had hoped and this weekend's game wound up costing somewhere near the $7 million mark.  As with the prior weekend, Mac was upbeat about it and has been doing a number of interviews with the local media.  Mac was quoted as saying:  "It's great,It's the perfect outcome for our customers.  In the long term, we made a lot of happy customers and that's what it's all about: building customers for life."  I gotta give Mac credit, he is living up to his word.  Of course, he is getting a lot of free publicity an outcome. 

BTW - this is the place where we got our couches a few months back.