One of America's biggest tourist traps gave me a college sports business idea

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

Friends, thanks for being patient with me. I am finally home after a long family vacation.

How long? Well, we started in Chicago, drove up to Minneapolis so my kids could see the Mall of America, then went down to Rapid City, South Dakota, to hike around the Badlands and Custer State Park. Then we drove to southwestern Wyoming for a family reunion, swung over to Salt Lake City to see even more family, and then flew as fast as my 2016 Kia Optima could take us down Interstate 80 back to Chicago. The entire loop ran more than 3,000 miles.

Was it a lovely and restorative trip? Absolutely. If I’m going on vacation, I need to do something that forces me off my phone or the internet, so I absolutely cannot work. But you don’t have to look at that map for very long to realize that I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few weeks driving through absolutely nothing.

And part of that drive through nothing gave me an idea. Maybe it’s a stupid idea … I’ve been known to have those from time to time. But I’m gonna talk about it anyway.

If you want to drive across South Dakota, the fastest way is usually via Interstate 90, which runs from Minnesota to Sioux Falls and Rapid City, then to Wyoming and Montana.

And one of the very first things you’ll see on 90 once you cross the South Dakota state line is a billboard advertising Wall Drug. Shortly after that, you’ll see another one. And then another one. There are hundreds of these things along the highway, some right next to each other. You’d be forgiven for thinking Wall Drug billboards were the greatest economic industry in South Dakota.

Wall Drug, and I say this with a measure of affection, is one of America’s great tourist traps. Sure, it’s technically a drugstore (located in Wall, South Dakota, not far from Rapid City), but it’s also a gaggle of gift shops, restaurants, mechanical dinosaurs, playgrounds, photo ops and more. What started as a simple promotion (advertising free ice water to weary travelers) evolved into a Great Plains Buc-ees on steroids.

Of course I stopped there. I have an 8- and an 11-year-old. Three hundred miles into that drive, both of my girls became convinced that Wall Drug held the keys to all human happiness. It was the most important thing in the universe. In the moment, they couldn’t have cared less about the mountain with the presidents carved into it. After 300 miles of billboards, the only thing that mattered was Wall Drug.

I mean, the place is fine, I guess. But if you’ve been to a Buc-ees or CarHenge or the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota or whatever, you’ve pretty much already been to Wall Drug. I wouldn’t recommend a trip unless you’re already driving out to the Badlands or something.

Gmail is free, but you pay with your data. Proton Mail is different.

We don’t scan your messages. We don’t sell your behavior. We don’t follow you across the internet.

Proton Mail gives you full-featured, private email without surveillance or creepy profiling. It’s email that respects your time, your attention, and your boundaries.

Email doesn’t have to cost your privacy.

Ditch the Gmail data grab

My theory is that while we can eventually become blind to billboards or advertisements we see on a regular commute, the ads we see when (a) we can’t easily distract ourselves with devices and (b) have some sense of novelty — they can stick with consumers more than, say, a fleeting Instagram ad or a promotion splashed across a city bus.

When you’re driving out in the middle of nowhere, cell service will occasionally cut out. You can’t (safely or legally, anyway) browse social media. It’s just you, your radio and whatever the eye can see. On I-90 in South Dakota, what you’re seeing is a whole hell of a lot of ads for Wall Drug.

But why limit this promotion to roadside tourist attractions, lawyers specializing in Big Truck Law or theological warnings?

According to Lamar, one could buy space on a single billboard around I-90 in South Dakota for about $650 for four weeks (depending on exactly how rural you want to go, the posted rate appears to run between $500 and $1,200 for a four-week campaign). Billboard prices around rural Wyoming and Nebraska are a bit higher, but generally under $2,000 a month.

So if the good people at Lamar might perhaps be willing to throw in a discount for a bulk order, you could buy an eight-billboard marketing campaign across a major rural America drive for around $5,000.

Now, five grand is a lot of money, but there are programs that spend more than that on paid social advertising, and it’s a lot less expensive than a TV commercial.

A more local-ish program could use a run of billboards for a storytelling/brand awareness campaign, rather than trying to specifically drive ticket sales or something along those lines. I only remember seeing one Cowboys billboard as I drove through Wyoming. (If I remember correctly, it featured Josh Allen and was just outside the Laramie exit.) I could see a potential campaign to promote multiple teams or athletes that could live all over I-25 or I-80. Go drive some “above the cap” MMR dollars and whatnot.

Sure, we could force you to think about Wall Drug for the next five hours … or we could force you to think about Stetson Hatters baseball. Or UW-Green Bay. Or, I dunno, get really crazy with it: Purdue.

Lots of schools already do this around major metro areas where they might recruit future students, and sure, schools can or should continue to do that. But why not road-weary travelers? Remind them to stay up ‘til 11 p.m. this fall to watch Big Sky football. Promote the glory of America East basketball. Have your donors bid to design the billboard message. Make a whole campaign out of it.

Best-case scenario, you get additional earned media out of the campaign that far outstrips the value you spend on roadside advertising, plus you can marginally improve your brand awareness in a new market. Worst case, well, you spent marketing dollars that could have gone to Mark Zuckerberg instead, and you confused some tourists. There are worse mistakes to make in college athletics, I’m sure.

You know who would be perfect for this? An athletic department that isn’t afraid to step out on a limb and demand attention. One that suddenly needs to introduce itself to markets thousands of miles away.

Extra Points Library gives college sports professionals instant access to the contracts, financial records, salary benchmarks and operational data shaping the industry. Whether you’re benchmarking salaries, researching vendor deals, comparing your school to its peers, reporting a story or simply trying to better understand how college athletics actually works, Library gives you the data behind the headlines.

It’s built specifically for professionals who work in college sports. Start searching over 13,000 documents here.

Also read about our summer launch here - more benchmarking data, more contracts and a FREE scheduling tool called GamePlace.

You can grab some billboards across I-90 in Northern Indiana for, like, $1,500 a month. You want people to pay attention to you in the Midwest this fall? Make sure anybody dragging across the toll road has to think about you. Give travelers something else to look at besides promotions for Michigan’s cheap weed or RV dealerships.

Put Shaq on a billboard outside Fort Wayne. Remind Pacers fans that he works for you guys now.

Shoot, maybe I’ve talked myself into this for Extra Points. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go look up how much billboards would cost around the greater Canton area come Extra Points Bowl time …