Quicken Loans signed a four-year contract with the National Football League to be its exclusive mortgage sponsor, just in time for the Feb. 2 Super Bowl. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
“Over the years we’ve been a brand and a company that likes to do big epic things,” Casey Hurbis, chief marketing officer for Quicken, said in an interview.
He pointed to other high-profile sporting events sponsored by the Detroit-based company, like the 2011 Carrier Classic, a basketball matchup between Michigan State and the University of North Carolina on the deck of the U.S.S. Carl Vinson. It was attended by President Barack Obama.
With the NFL deal, Quicken will be “America’s largest lender working with America’s largest sports platform,” Hurbis said. More than 100 million people typically watch the Super Bowl.
The annual football championship will have a new twist this year. Quicken will be sponsoring an NFL-approved version of the Super Bowl “squares” game, a traditional fixture in business offices during the week before the game and at viewing parties on Super Bowl Sunday.
In the small-time and unofficial version of the game, contestants try to guess the winning score by choosing squares from a gridded piece of paper. Each bet typically costs $5 or $10.
The Rocket Mortgage Super Bowl Squares Sweepstakes game is free to enter, and there are more than $1 million in prizes. Two participants will win $500,000 and others will win $50,000 every time the score of the game changes, according to the Quicken news release.
In this high-tech version of the game, you enter online and are required to answer several questions about whether you own or rent your home, and if you plan to buy a house in the coming year. (The form also asks, “Would you like a Quicken Loans expert to contact you now about your purchase or refinance options?”)
Contestants are required to provide basic information including name, home address, phone number, and email address before picking a free square. If you don’t want to receive promotional emails, there are several boxes to uncheck before submitting the entry.
