Royals Fans Loves Them Some Bagels

The local Panera Bread started a promotion this season that fans could get 13 bagels if the Royals got 13 or more hits in a home win. Well, the fine folks at Panera must not have had much faith in the local nine, because once the Royals did it, they dropped the promotion.

From the Star:

The promotion that was going to replace the wildly popular Krispy Kreme doughnut promotion of recent years ��� Panera Bread���s baker���s dozen ��� is no more.

The baker���s dozen promotion ��� fans could get 13 bagels if the Royals got 13 or more hits in a home win ��� was hit once, on April 20 in the win over the Twins. That apparently was enough for Panera Bread.

���We���re definitely pulling the plug,��� said Eric Cole, vice president of operations for the Kansas City Panera franchises.

Cole said that Panera was overwhelmed when more than 8,500 fans wanted to redeem their ticket stubs from that victory. That meant that Panera���s franchises were busy pumping out more than 111,000 bagels over a five-day period.

The V.P. said that he was led to believe that there would be about a 15 percent redemption rate and it wound up being about 26.7 percent from that one game. Never underestimate the power of the word "free" when it comes to fans.