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The Cleveland Browns are looking to reward their loyal fans this year with an alcohol-related celebration.
The team has partnered with Bud Light, an NFL sponsor, to place special “Victory Fridges” at FirstEnergy Stadium and in bars that have purchased the refrigerators. As soon as the Browns win a regular season game, the refrigerators will unlock, allowing fans to have a free Bud Light in celebration, as Andy Goeler, Bud Light’s vice president of marketing, explained to cleveland.com:
“Obviously they haven’t won in a while. We’re putting victory fridges out into the marketplace. When the Cleveland Browns win, at the end of the game, these refrigerators ... will send a wireless signal that will unlock them and give fans the opportunity to have a celebratory Bud Light. We believe in Cleveland. It’s just fun. They will win, obviously, and we want them to win.”
Each “Victory Fridge” will hold approximately 200 aluminum 16-ounce bottles of Bud Light.
You’ve stood by us through it all. We love you for it, and so does @budlight.
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) August 14, 2018
These special fridges will unlock celebratory beers when we get our first regular season “W”.#VictoryFridge pic.twitter.com/LgsGNabMpt
The Browns have not won a regular season game since Christmas Eve of 2016, so Browns fans have grown accustomed to the practice of drowning away another defeat in alcohol, rather than celebrating a win.
The first opportunity will come on Sept. 9, when the Browns open the season by hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Browns have lost 13 consecutive season openers since defeating the Baltimore Ravens in 2004, so whether or not the free beer flows that day remains to be seen.