Erie Comes Down with “LinSanity” Fever

The Erie community is passionate about sports. It’s a passion for something they love to watch. It’s a community with sports fever, a community all about “LinSanity.”

Jeremy Lin poster at the Erie Civic Center.

Jeremy Lin played for the Erie Bayhawks, a National Basketball Association Developmental League team, for only one game. The game was an out of town game; so many people in Erie did not see Lin’s performance. His performance made Bayhawks fans go crazy, which is known as LinSanity, for Lin memorabilia. They gave away Lin posters, New York Knicks hats and t-shirts, etc.

Jason Vaughan, Manager of
promotions and client services
for the Erie Bayhawks.

After Lin played one game for Erie, signed with the Knicks, and started making history in the NBA, Jason Vaughan saw this as a perfect way to get people to come to more Bayhawks games. Vaughan, manager of promotions and client services for the Bayhawks said, "We wanted to ctach the wave and get right on top of that stuff, so we did a LinSanity night March 3rd. Basically if your name had any form of 'Lin' in it you got in for free. Like Kaitlin or Colin. If you were a Harvard graduate you got in for free. If you were 17 you got in for free because that was his number. If you sat in section 17 that day, we gave giveaways."

Jeremy Lin's Erie Bayhawks replica
jersey.

To draw more people to the games, Vaughn thought it would be a good idea to sell Lin’s Bayhawks jersey and practice gear on eBay, a website people use to buy and sell items. “It brought in all together close to $20,000, which was ridiculous. I was sitting at home and the jersey expired at 4 p.m. on a Saturday. We didn’t play that day so I was watching the bidding with my wife and kept hitting refresh and it was at $4,000 to start the day. Then with an hour left it was at $7,000,” Vaughn said, “then inside a minute I hit refresh and 45 seconds left it went up to $10,000. Then at 12 seconds left I hit refresh again and it was at $12,500. So I hit refresh again and it was over and it was at $13,800.”

A LinSanity t-shirt.

On their Facebook page, a social network people use to communicate online, Vaughan would post different promotional events and questions. “Once I would tag @JeremyLin and would hit refresh we would have 15 new friends right away,” Vaughan said. Season ticket holder, Melissa Smith said, “We follow Jeremy Lin on Facebook and actually bought a Jeremy Lin t-shirt. I mean I’m not a huge fan of Jeremy Lin, but it’s pretty cool he played for Erie for a game. When we came to ‘LinSanity’ night it was insane. We saw people fighting over different Lin things, it was nuts.”
The community is passionate about sports in the Erie area. When it comes to the Bayhawks, Erie thrives for Lin merchandise. People will go to all costs to get their hands on a piece of the memorabilia. It’s a “LinSanity” fever.