It’s fall in Columbus, so that means there’s one thing on everyone’s mind: Ohio State Football. However, Ohio State has many other entertaining and competitive Sports teams for us to root for.
One of the best ways that we have found this out first hand, has been to sign our daughter up for Brutus Buddies.
Brutus Buddies is a membership program open to any Ohio State Fan in 6th Grade or younger. The cost is $30/per year ($25 for additional children in your family). The membership fee covers a welcome package that gets mailed each September and contains a lot of exciting goodies for the kiddos, including a Brutus Buddies t-shirt, a free Kids Combo at Raising Canes, an official Brutus Buddies member certificate, and the Brutus Buddies Lanyard that kids can wear to identify themselves as a member of the program (my daughter affectionately calls this her “credentials”.) Before we’ve even ever attended a sporting event, I feel the $30 is well spent. My daughter loves getting “mail from Brutus”.
The year is split into a fall and spring session of Brutus Buddies and each session will contain approximately 7 sporting events. The admission for some of these sporting events is already free of charge so everyone gets in for free. For other events that have an admission charged to get into, the Brutus Buddy will get in for free. At each event, there is one or more experiences or perks that the Brutus Buddies will receive. For example, September 22 was the first Brutus Buddies event of the year and the Brutus Buddies received free sunglasses when they checked in at the Brutus Buddies table (staffed by very friendly Ohio State students or employees and always easy to locate at each venue) as well as a tour of the Locker room during the warm-up. At past events my daughter has had a lot of fun experiences and perks including: free popcorn, being able to be on the field as an Anthem Buddie, meet and greets with the teams, being able to go onto court or onto the field after the event, a race with Brutus, and many more. These experiences are always enjoyable and my daughter has loved each one of them. When you sign up your child for Brutus Buddies and enter your email, you will get reminders emailed to you prior to each event and any important details about the experiences or perks will be in that email.
There’s also a rewards program in place for the Brutus Buddies. At each event, you will check-in at the Brutus Buddies table and after 3 events, you’ll get your picture taken with Brutus After 5 events, and again after 7 events, you receive a variety of OSU merchandise. The highlight of the year for my daughter is always the photo with Brutus, but he’s also often at these events and does a good job to interact with all the fans in attendance.
My favorite part of Brutus Buddies is it’s opened us up to so many more sporting events then we would have normally gone to. We have always enjoyed the event we are at, and the quality of the Ohio State Athletics Program is obvious at each event. There really is so much more to Ohio State Athletics than Football. Brutus Buddies is a program that really opens us up to that and allows my daughter to feel like an important fan of Ohio State Athletics.
If you’re interested in finding out more information about Brutus Buddies, or you are interested in signing up you can visit www.ohiostate.com/brutusbuddies/ They also have a Facebook page where they regularly update the fall schedule and post photos of Brutus Buddies events.
I highly recommend the Brutus Buddies program for any family that loves Ohio State athletics, Brutus and trying out new sporting events. We’ve been members since 2017 and we are so thankful for the program. Go Bucks!
Author Bio: Shona is a Mom to a 6-year-old daughter and loves the Buckeyes and Blue Jackets. In addition to sporting events, her family enjoys traveling and spending time outdoors.
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