Green Meadows banners at Polar Park
A new marketing deal at Polar Park has found a clever loophole to allow cannabis advertising by placing it not inside, but all around the park.
Southbridge-based cannabis dispensary Green Meadows has signed a three-year marketing deal with the Worcester Red Sox to place banners in the area surrounding the ballpark, along with organizing events with the WooSox Foundation to support local veterans.
“We were excited about the prospect of doing this from the beginning,” said Rob Patton, Chief Marketing Officer at Green Meadows. “It was very apparent that (the WooSox) as an organization were looking to lean more into the cannabis space while still doing it compliantly. Minor League Baseball, the parent company, is not going to touch cannabis, so we had to come up with a pretty creative way of how to do it.”
According to Cannabis Control Commission guidelines in Massachusetts, cannabis companies must be able to prove that the audience for their advertisements is at least 85% 21 years or older, the legal age to be able to use cannabis recreationally.
“At a baseball game, we couldn’t verify that,” Patton said.
In addition, while the MLB began allowing CBD sponsorships last month, according to Sports Business Journal, cannabis is still a no-go.
The solution turned out to be a series of 60 banners on light poles in the Canal District which bear both the Green Meadows logo and that of the WooSox in the team’s signature light blue. Patton said that the company looked at housing data of apartments in the area around the stadium to see the age makeup and verify that they were in compliance with state guidelines.
If and when the rules change, Green Meadows will also have right of first refusal for advertising within the ballpark, Patton said.
Larry Lucchino, chairman of the WooSox, said the team and park were happy to work with Green Meadows to support the area.
“We vowed that the ballpark would look and taste and feel and smell like Worcester,” Lucchino said. “Therefore, we didn’t think it was our place to say no to a legal service and a legal product, albeit a controversial one.... We were eager for the advertising dollars and they were eager for the advertising exposure.”
Patton said he was most excited about the veterans programs the company will be organizing approximately four times a year with the WooSox Foundation. Green Meadows, founded by descendants of World War II General George S. Patton, has been committed to supporting veterans since its inception.
Green Meadows cosponsored the ballpark’s Veterans Day dinner in November, attended by about 200 veterans. In March, they hosted their first cannabis roundtable discussion with local lawmakers at Polar Park; another event is scheduled for July 29, when they will invite the heads of local VFW posts to a panel discussion on the use of cannabis in the veteran community.
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