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Holy Trifecta of Fall Football :: Sheraton, NCAA & TripAdvisor

October 23, 2008 at 1:15 PM | by | Comments (0)

NCAA football fanatics, you know who you are (and judging by your poor hygiene on game days, we know who you are too). Fall weekends mean a few key things: Beer. Those adorable mini hot dogs. Foam fingers. More beer. And Sheraton Hotels.

Uh, what? Now, we already knew Sheraton was the official hotel partner of the NCAA, but they've announced further infiltration on your team-loving. No, your mini hot dogs won't be branded with the Sheraton crest (though we wouldn't put that past them in the future!). But in addition to holding a monopoly on ad spots and billboards, Sheraton has now teamed up with TripAdvisor to present the NCAA Big Game Travel Center.

Via TripAdvisor's website, the travel center highlights the NCAA football schedule, offers cute "fan etiquette" tips, plus plenty of ways to connect with other fans, from the Sheraton NCAA Ultimate Paper Football Challenge to fan forums filled with insider tips and heated rival team trash-talkin'. Not to mention search functions for finding Sheraton hotels in game cities, accompanied by TA reviews.

But wait, a quick click-through of the site revealed a serious lack of the usual blend of crazy we know and love from TA reviewers. Looks like the NCAA Big Game Travel Center is totally schilling for Sheraton in the name of brand crossover.

Take the Sheraton Atlanta Hotel, for instance, highlighted in relation to the Nov. 1st Florida State vs. Georgia Tech showdown. Through the fancy new Travel Center, 10 reviews show up. We counted eight instances of the word "great." That struck us as a little odd, considering the hotel only got rated a three out of five. And if you independently search for the Sheraton Atlanta Hotel on TA, you'll find the other side of the story (from "deplorable" to "stay away from this dump!"). Sure, we understand why Sheraton would want TA to bury those reviews, but it must at least feel a little funny to the folks at TA, is all we're saying.

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