The Milwaukee Bucks flaunt the most powerful T-shirt shooter in the NBA, a triple-barrel Gatling-type gun that can shoot 120 shirts into the BMO Harris Bradley Center crowd in seconds.
But on Friday, the team will take airborne crowd giveaways to the next level. The Bucks have partnered with cold-weather brand Weatherproof to launch the company's heat-retaining long sleeve shirts, down vests and even jackets that retail for $100 each.
The Bucks, under the new ownership of Marc Lasry and Wes Edens, already have won 19 games, four more than last season's total, and are on pace for their best season in five years. The Weatherproof promotion begins at Friday night's home game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
"We're so excited to see how this enhances our game presentation," team president Peter Feigin said Thursday. "We think this is a great way to literally warm up Bucks Nation and thank them for being there."
All of the products shot from the gun, whose power comes from blasts of carbon dioxide, will be branded with the Weatherproof and Bucks logos and the team's motto, "Fear The Deer."
The gun itself will be branded with Weatherproof's 32 Degrees line as will the bags in which the items are packed.
"This market is very crowded and cluttered, so we have to do things that no one else is doing," Weatherproof CEO Eliot Peyser said. "We're evolving while rewarding people in one of the coldest markets in the NBA."
The deal is a sponsorship with the team, while Weatherproof pays for the cost of the product.
"Brand building is a tricky game," Peyser said. "We are not Coca-Cola and we are not Budweiser. We don't have a $100 million marketing budget. So we have to do things like this, shooting our product out of a cannon and putting our name on the tarp at Yankee Stadium and buying five-second local commercials on the Super Bowl broadcasts."
Peyser said the Weatherproof product obviously has more value than the standard T-shirt giveaway, but the big prize -- the company's down jacket -- will be more like the "Golden Ticket" on Friday night.