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The Goodyear blimp at 100: a puzzle piece in modern publicity

The Goodyear blimp at 100: a puzzle piece in modern publicity

Also, how a coach got it wrong when he talked about an NIL mega-deal

Gail Sideman
June 12, 2025

REMINDER — Celebrate National NIL Day, July 1, by giving college athletes the best chance to thrive in an evolving environment. Coach them to present consistent, creative and credible communication skills so they can learn from and provide value to businesses. For more information, contact Gail at [email protected].

🎂 Happy birthday to the Goodyear blimp, which turned 100 last week.🍦

That you associate Goodyear with tires and almost every major sports event shows how paid advertising can also be effective PR*.

But the campaign is missing something.

For the most part, people know the blimp when they see it, but don’t know its cool story. Unless you’ve researched the blimp’s background, you might not know how or where the oblong machine became a feature on its own. Front Office Sports had some answers when I dug for stats and facts about the blimp’s centennial celebration:

The blimp is a popular part of Goodyear Tires’ publicity strategy.

✳️ Goodyear owns four of the world’s 20 operational blimps. Three are based in the United States—in Akron, Ohio (home to Goodyear Tires), South Florida and California, and the other in Germany.

✳️ The blimp is about 246 feet longer than a Boeing 747.

✳️ Crews include 20 people (including two pilots) and typically don’t fly more than 300 miles each day.

✳️ The blimp’s first sports appearance was over the 1955 Rose Bowl.

✳️ There’s a 🚽bathroom on board.

While those of us on the business side of sports talk about the blimp-media relationship as a paid part of PR, it’s mostly a swap deal. Per FOS, little to no money changes hands. Goodyear and the events it flies over get exposure via media reads, while TV networks get dynamic backdrops for graphics packages and stunning aerial views of each event.

Goodyear gets the equivalent of thousands of dollars for a few minutes of media during each event, and when eyes gaze upward during the likes of pro golf tournaments, the Super Bowl, College Football Playoff and NASCAR races.

But is paid—or like-paid—really public relations?

When you talk about public relations, you don’t typically think of paid media. That’s advertising. But with every medium you use, your message has to be consistent so people easily recognize you. That’s why even paid ads need to complement earned (stories pitched and covered by reporters) and owned media (social media, newsletters, blogs, etc.). Together, they become part of your PR and publicity plan.

You might think more creatively for most campaigns, but Goodyear keeps it simple. Its most used tagline: “Blimps are cool. Buy tires.” Hey, the strategy works.

NIL Edge — After his team lost to Texas in the Women’s College World Series, Texas Tech softball coach Gerry Glasco said it was “almost insulting” that reporters asked about his star pitcher NiJaree Canady’s record-setting NIL deals. Why the media’s questions were justified and Glasco should have expected and prepared for them in the NIL Edge.

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