Cal State Long Beach’s Bateman Team is looking to break a Guinness World Record at Saturday’s basketball game against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
The team aims to pop about 700 party poppers at the same time at the game, thereby setting a world record. The current record of 536 party poppers popped is held by Westfield Academy in the U.K., according to the Guinness World Records website.
The Bateman Team plans to have 1,000 fans participate in the Popmoney Party Poppin’ Guinness World Record Event. If the team succeeds in breaking the record, it will be the first Guinness World Record set at CSULB since 1978, when the university broke the record for the largest submarine sandwich.
“The people with Guinness [World Records] are very strict about the policies for breaking the record, and we are taking every step possible to ensure everything runs smoothly,” said Francisco Aguirre, a Bateman Team member and public relations major.
If the team succeeds, they will also have a better chance at winning the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) Bateman Case Study Competition.
For the competition, PRSSA — in partnership with Fiserv, Inc., a financial services provider — challenges participants to implement a full public relations campaign that raises awareness of and gains users for Popmoney, a personal payment service, according to the PRSSA website.
The first-place winner of the Bateman competition will receive a trophy and prize of $2,500 while the second-place winner will receive a plaque and $1,500.
The CSULB Bateman Team is formed each year for the competition. The group of public relations students is formed through courses offered by the journalism and mass communication department, and it includes a few members of CSULB’s chapter of PRSSA.
For the competition, teams research and plan their campaigns from November to January and implement their campaign plans in February. All teams are then judged by members of PRSSA — the leading professional organization in public relations — and other professionals in the industry.
The CSULB Bateman Team’s attempt to break the party popper record is one facet of its campaign for Popmoney. Senior journalism and public relations major and Bateman Team member Mariana Vaca has also been dressing up as Popgirl, a mascot for Popmoney, to raise awareness of the service.
Popgirl is part of the team’s “Where’s Popgirl?” Instagram contest, which gives students a chance to win one of four $25 gift cards to Islands Restaurant. To enter the contest, students must find Popgirl on campus, take a creative picture with her and post it on Instagram with the hashtag #heypopgirl and tag the team’s Pay Like a Champion page.
The team has also been hosting games, such as its most recent bubblegum blowing contest. Students could challenge Popgirl during the contest, and the first to blow a five-inch bubble won an $80 gift card for a pair of customized Vans sneakers.
The Bateman Team has offered several prizes throughout its campaign, from a signed Los Angeles Lakers hat to a CSULB sweatshirt. Students who participate in Saturday’s party poppers event will have a chance to win similar prizes.
Aguirre said the team already has 2,000 poppers ready for Saturday’s game, but they need more volunteers to be stewards who keep count of people entering the Walter Pyramid and assign poppers at the event.
The Bateman Case Study Competition will come to a close at the end of February, and the Bateman Team is doing all they can to bring the trophy back to CSULB.
Vaca said she hopes students will come out and help support the team.
“Working with the Pyramid to set up this event has been great, but we need a lot of people to participate if we are going to succeed,” she said.
