In Business

The Super Bowl commercial blitz is extending beyond the usual talking babies and office chimps to engage viewers online and get more for advertisers’ $3 million-plus investment.

Marketers are using every trick in the playbook to dominate the buzz before the game and long afterward, too. The gimmicks include online contests, a car “race” powered by Twitter mentions, and a secret new level of a hit iPhone game.

The goal is to build buzz, not get lost in the 42 minutes of Super Bowl ad time, and get cheap or free exposure when viewers watch again on YouTube.
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Tom Palinca, store manager at Magic Sports shows off some of the Chicago Bears apparel on display at the sports clothing store. The Bears will meet the Green Bay Packers on Sunday for the NFC championship. (Photograph by John Luke/The Times.)

What some are calling the biggest game in Chicago Bears history may not be translating into increased sales of the team’s merchandise, according to a local proprietor.

“It’s not like 2006 at all,” said Magic MacKeigan, owner of Valparaiso’s Magic Sports, speaking about Sunday’s Bears-Packers game compared to Chicago’s Super Bowl run four years ago. “The Bears-Colts Super Bowl was our best January ever.”

MacKeigan believes that fans have remained skeptical about the Bears despite their recent winning ways.
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Michigan City could play host to college sports tournaments—if local tourism officials get their wish.

Nothing is set in stone, but tourism officials are shooting for 2012 to begin hosting annual Great Lakes Valley Conference tournaments normally held on campus.

The hope is to eventually host Division II regional and semifinal tournaments.
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Wally Galka, second from right, owner of Galka's Pro Shop, laughs while working on bowling balls. The Dyer shop is celebrating 31 years in business.
(Photograph by Heather Eidson/The Times.)

Galka’s Bowling Pro Shop is celebrating 31 years in business, and founder Andy Galka is there in spirit.

Galka died in 2005, and his picture has a prominent place in the small shop in Dyer that he used to come to every day.

“He watches over us,” said son Wally, who opened the shop with his father in 1979. Whenever he has an obstacle or a business problem to overcome, it seems as though his father is there, helping him find a way.
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Knock Outs Sports Bar & Grill co-owners Braulio Corral, left, and chef Luis Martinez sit in the dining area of their Merrillville mixed martial arts-themed eatery. “We wanted to bring a unique dining experience to all of our students, friends and the fans of Corral's Combat Classic and fans of mixed martial arts in general,” Corral said. (Photograph by The Times.)

Braulio Corral is no stranger to risky business ventures.

Corral left the comfort of a decade-long managerial position at U.S. Steel to open his own martial arts school. After successfully opening two Corral’s Martial Arts academies in Valparaiso and Schererville and promoting professional mixed martial arts events at the Hammond Civic Center and Wicker Park, Corral has made his first foray into fine dining.

With the help of chef Luis Martinez and investor George Librandi, Corral opened Knock Outs Sports Bar & Grill at 260 East 84th Drive in Merrillville.
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Investors are rushing to put together financing by the end of the year for a $40 million sports complex at the southeast corner of Ind. 49 and the Indiana Toll Road.

The proposal calls for an enclosed facility that would be available for various types of sporting events, as well as music concerts, said John Shepherd, director of the Porter County Redevelopment Commission.

The proposal took a leap forward Tuesday evening when the LaPorte County commissioners granted the developers access to a $6.8 million low-interest loan provided through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
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Resetting the agenda to help kids with Down Syndrome

(Photograph by Tony V. Martin.)

Jennifer Heath, interim administrator at Barker Woods Enrichment Center in Michigan City, began her work helping children with special needs after she and her husband Jerry’s lives crossed paths with the center.

Heath, who grew up in South Bend, Skokie, and then Michigan City, attended Indiana State and PNC and studied marketing, but she says that career vision changed when she had her first child. “I came into a totally different area than what I intended, but that all changed when I had my oldest daughter, Libby, who was born with Down Syndrome,” says Heath. “I studied about Down Syndrome, I learned about it and I became involved with Barker Woods Enrichment Center. I served on their board for eight years before I began working there,” Heath says.

Barker Woods Enrichment Center provides childcare and preschool services for children of all abilities, specializing in serving children with special needs. They also provide pediatric occupational and speech therapy services for children. The facility was started by a group of parents whose children were not welcomed in the public school system during the 1950s.
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General manager John Stroia, left, owner Mark Leyden and Mike McNamara, operations manager, run the Fieldhouse-Merrillville, which offers basketball leagues, tournaments, and camps. Open since November 2008, the 53,000-square-foot facility has six NCAA regulation-size basketball courts. (Photograph by The Times.)

The Fieldhouse-Merrillville opened Nov. 1, 2008, with time running out on the economic shot clock.

Franchise owner Mark Leyden said financing was arranged right before “the whole meltdown.”

Merrillville was fortunate to gain the 53,000-square-foot basketball facility with six hardwood NCAA-style courts when it did. Another franchise in Bolingbrook, Ill., has been stalled in construction because of the financial crisis.

“We opened in the teeth of a pretty ferocious economic cycle,” he said.
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Richard Biggs has invented a unique golf club called the Palm Putter and will showcase the United States Golf Association-approved putter this weekend on golf courses in Chesterton and Munster.
(Photograph by The Times.)

A Porter violin shop owner’s new invention might improve golf scores worldwide.

Richard Biggs has invented a unique golf club called the Palm Putter. He will showcase the United States Golf Association-approved putter this weekend on golf courses in Chesterton and Munster.

The idea for the club came to Biggs, a former design engineer, several years ago while watching some of the world’s best golfers miss 4-foot putts “despite having the best coaches and equipment in the world.”

“I thought I could come up with a putter that would eliminate some of the problems they have,” Biggs said. “Any putter guy would tell you they’ve done this, but every year new putters come out but they’re just new, not better.”

He also took into account the lessons golfers were getting on putting.

“It’s like Yogi Berra once said: ‘You can’t hit and think at the same time,’” Biggs said. “They want you to think about 10 different things.”

Biggs then spent a few years dabbling with prototypes until he came up with one made of brass materials. It includes a ball handle on the club that is held in the palm of the golfer’s hand and a rounded bottom of the head in order to get the ball rolling as opposed to skidding, resulting in a more accurate putt.
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Co-owner Dan Zunica sits inside Danny Z's Pub & Grub, a Munster restaurant located in the former Beef O'Brady's restaurant site a block east of Dante's House of Pizza, which he and his wife also own. (Photograph by The Times.)

Dan Zunica grew up in the restaurant business. His father and mother, Dante and Marilyn Zunica, opened House of Pizza in Hammond in 1954.

Over the years, Zunica continued that tradition of serving up pizzas at other restaurants. In honor of Zunica’s father, he and wife Lanette opened Dante’s House of Pizza along 45th Street in Munster in September 2008.

Now, the Munster residents are heading in a new direction with Danny Z’s Pub & Grub, located a block east of Dante’s in the former Beef O’Brady’s restaurant site. The new 160-seat eatery will open Tuesday, Zunica said.
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