Badgers football program hosting helmet scavenger hunt in Eau Claire
May 23—Visitors to a few Eau Claire parks on Thursday might see more Badger red than they're used to on a morning stroll.
The University of Wisconsin football program will be hosting a scavenger hunt at a few parks around Eau Claire on Thursday morning. The Badgers will hide 100 mini football helmets throughout city parks to celebrate being 100 days away from kicking off the 2022 season. Each helmet will have a prize associated it, including game tickets, autographed footballs and gift cards.
Eau Claire is one of four areas around the state where the Badgers will host a scavenger hunt, along with Appleton, Madison and Racine/Kenosha.
"Most times, Badgers fans have to come to us (in Madison) to show support," Wisconsin director of football brand communications Brian Lucas said. "We're very grateful for that. We wanted to go out state-wide and reach Badger fans where they are. Eau Claire has been tremendous support for us not only in football, but in all sports — and definitely in hockey. So it sort of made sense as we were looking geographically to cover the whole state."
The specific parks the scavenger hunt will be held in will be announced on Thursday at 6 a.m. Helmets will have an attached code for fans to scan and redeem their prize.
Three grand prize winners will receive a $100 gift card to Pick 'N Save and two tickets to a home game of the winner's choosing.
Lucas said the Badgers aren't sure how long it will take for all the helmets to be found. They could go early or take a while to check them all off the list, depending on fan turnout. The helmets won't be too difficult to find, but they'll require a bit of searching.
"I've described it to people as more of an 8-year-old Easter egg hunt than a true scavenger hunt," Lucas said. "The parks we're looking at are parks where there is equipment or trees. So it won't be a wide open field with a bunch of helmets, but we're not going to dig holes or bury stuff or make it too hard for people to find."
There is a limit of one prize per fan. If the helmets are found quickly, there will still be opportunities to earn prizes.
"If the helmets do go really fast, we're going to have signs in each of the parks where — if all the helmets are gone — people can scan a code to enter a drawing for more prizes," Lucas said. "If all the helmets were gone at 7 a.m. and someone came at 8:30, the last thing we'd want is for Badger fans to be disappointed in what we did. So this is an opportunity to kind of hedge our bets and let people feel a part of it even if the helmets are gone in a specific location."
Thursday marks 100 days until the Badgers host Illinois State on Sept. 3 to open the season.
