• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, February 22, 2012

Perhaps the paramount (or at least, highest) honor accorded to a sporting event is aerial coverage from the iconic Goodyear Blimp. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is partnering with ESPN to let basketball fans decide which college tournament match-ups are deserving of the high-altitude treatment or “blimpworthy.”

Together with ESPN SportsNation, Goodyear is hosting an online vote to determine blimpworthiness, with voting available at www.espn.com, the dedicated “blimpworthy” page as well as on the Goodyear site.  Fans can choose between three top contending tournaments for blimp coverage.

All will be broadcast by ESPN: the ACC Tournament in Atlanta, GA, on March 8; the SEC Tournament in New Orleans, LA, on March 8-9; and the Big West Tournament in Anaheim, CA, March 9-10.

Voting is open through Feb. 27, with results to be broadcast live on ESPN SportsNation that evening. This should give the famous airship plenty of time to trundle to whatever tournament gets the vote. There are three blimps in the Goodyear fleet, including Spirit of America, based in Carson, CA; Spirit of Goodyear, based in Akron, Ohio; and Spirit of Innovation, based in Pompano Beach, Florida.

This is the second airship-related piece of advertising news in the last few months.

Eureka, a Zeppelin owned by Airship Ventures, is set to wrap its previous sponsorship with Farmers Insurance in April, when the company begins the search for a new sponsor wanting larger-than-life exposure. Other past sponsors have included the Bay Area News Group and Disney-Pixar’s animated film “Up.” It is one of just three cutting-edge Zeppelin NTs (Zeppelin New Technology) manufactured by Zeppelin GmbH of Germany.