On the house.

• Author: Schley, Stewart
• Position: Sports Biz

THERE'S AN OLD BUSINESS AXIOM ABOUT NOT GIVING AWAY the house. Apparently nobody shared it with Jim Harmon.

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Harmon is a longtime Colorado Avalanche supporter who has decided the proper way to celebrate the team's 10th season is to give away a house. Not just any old house. A freshly constructed row home in the residential development his company, Amber Homes Inc., is building in Commerce City.

The development is called Bonnyview at Aberdeen, and the home model is "The McGraw," which spans 1,521 square feet, offers two master-bedroom suites with walk-in closets and, if Harmon weren't so all-fired crazy about the Avalanche, would normally fetch about $183,000.

But it's yours for free if you happen to be the Avalanche game attendee or online registrant who's selected at random to win the thing between now and the end of the season.

Harmon is one of 10 Avalanche sponsors who are contributing prizes and goods worth around $500,000 to a "fan appreciation" contest that celebrates the team's Colorado anniversary this season. The fan giveaways include a three-night getaway at The Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, 10 free round-trip flights from Frontier Airlines Inc., a motorcycle from Rocky Mountain Harley-Davidson, and a pool table and six-person hot tub from Denver-based Pool Table Warehouse and Cal Spas.

The contest is pure publicity-stunt material for the Avalanche and owner Kroenke Sports Enterprises, which introduced Avalanche president and general manager Pierre LaCroix and showered sponsors in a blast of confetti when it unveiled the promotion in September. "This is possibly the biggest giveaway in the history of professional sports," boomed Avs radio announcer Mike Haynes at the press conference.

If only they kept statistics.

But after taking a year off because of a gloomy National Hockey League labor dispute, the Avalanche and owner Kroenke Sports Entertainment hope to restore a remarkable reservoir of fan support that has buoyed the team since its arrival in Colorado in 1995. The Avalanche has sold out every home game since November of that debut year.

For sponsors like Harmon, contributing a substantial asset into the sports-team promotion reflects a gut-level mix of business logic and raw emotion that is peculiar to the world of sports marketing.

Just about everywhere else, advertising is subjected to increasingly precise levels of measurement. Overnight Nielsen TV ratings, Internet click-through responses and newspaper...