Jordan's customers will win big again if Red Sox sweep
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, April 6, 2008
Boston — Jordan's Furniture customers will have another shot at free furniture this year, but the bar has been set higher.
Last year, the official furniture store of the Boston Red Sox promised free products if the Sox won pro baseball's World Series.
This time, the Red Sox will have to sweep all four games of the Series — like they did last year — for customers to get their money back on sofas, sectionals, dining room tables, beds, mattresses and rug purchases made between March 25 and April 27.
Consecutive sweeps of the World Series are not unheard of, although only one team — the Red Sox' archenemy New York Yankees — have managed to do it. The Yankees swept the World Series in 1927 and 1928, again in 1938 and 1939 and then in 1998 and 1999.
As it did in 2007, Jordan's took out an insurance policy for its Monster Sweep 2008 promotion.
Eliot Tatelman, president and CEO of four-store, Taunton, Mass.-based Jordan's, part of Berkshire Hathaway's furniture division, said he hopes to do double the business of last year's promotion.
More than 24,000 customers got rebate checks for their purchases in the 2007 event. He declined to say how much business was generated last year, although early on Jordan's said the event was insured for about $20 million and that results were expected to top that.
After the big 2007 giveaway, Tatelman was asked if Jordan's would do it again, and he responded that there could be a few obstacles. "Would you insure it?" he asked.
Indeed, that's one of the reasons the odds have been raised this year by requiring a sweep. But Tatelman said that the Red Sox' past two World Series wins were sweeps and that since 1989, 39% of the Series wins have been sweeps.
"It's still pretty good odds," he said. "Right now, oddsmakers place the Red Sox' chances of winning the Series at four to one."
He didn't know the odds for a sweep.
Jordan's is using the same insurance company as last year, but Tatelman declined to name it.
No free furniture for Red Sox fans
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12/10/2007Go Sox! Jordan's customers win
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