$150 for football. $110 for baseball, basketball, soccer. One dealership in Albertville, Alabama looked at those numbers and said: not anymore.
Now it's $25, flat, for every sport, every kid, no exceptions.
THE OFFER
Program: Drive to Play
Sponsor: Howard Bentley Buick-GMC
Partner: City of Albertville, Sand Mountain Park & Amphitheater
Old price: $110–$150 per sport
New price: $25 per sport
Eligibility: None. No residency limits, no exceptions.
Duration: Ongoing, not a one-year stunt
The dealership funded the entire gap itself after Sand Mountain Park reached out to local businesses looking for ways to lower costs. Third-generation dealer principal Taylor Bentley Conner didn't hesitate.
Our family has been blessed by this community for nearly 40 years, and this is simply one way we can meaningfully give back. Youth sports teach lessons that extend far beyond the game, they build confidence, character, teamwork and lifelong friendships.
🎙️ Listen to today's Automotive State of the Union episode for the complete discussion.
This is where it stops being just a nice story and starts being a smart one.
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A dealer would much rather sell a car into the local community where they have the opportunity to service that car and build a lifetime customer. This is textbook: how to give back to your community cost-effectively, with a huge ROI from a marketing standpoint.
And the play gets even better if other dealers stop waiting for the invitation.
Rather than waiting on the local park or city to come knocking, dealerships willing to reach out first can land the same kind of deal on their own terms. Funding one team's registration is a nice gesture. Funding an entire league's is a completely different level of visibility, and the cost difference between the two is smaller than most dealers assume.
Every kid registered under this program comes with a family attached, and every one of those families now knows exactly which dealership showed up for them first.
Sponsoring one team gets a logo on a jersey. Funding an entire league's registration gets a dealership's name into a conversation happening at kitchen tables across the whole city, every single season, for as long as the program runs. That's not charity accounting. That's a customer-acquisition strategy that happens to also be a genuinely good thing to do.
