AFL New England Patriots and Elton John...

At first glance, and viewing of the New England Patriots home page, you see a variety of relevant, sports and football related items such as:
- A special event featuring Hall of Famer Andre Tippett
- News and video of training camp and rookies and contract status
- 50th Anniversary
- Team blogs
- Tickets and promotions

All nice and clean and easily clickable.

So, why did I mention Elton John?

Well, if you click on the team blog link, you will find a story about the Billy Joel and Elton John concert recently held in the Boston area.

During his show with Billy Joel at Gillette Stadium Saturday night Elton John dedicated “Tiny Dancer” to Patriots Owner Robert Kraft and his wife Myra. A longtime friend of the Krafts, John (hey, kind of looks funny when you only use his second name!) also called the Patriots his team and said he’d be serving as New England’s honorary captain for its game Oct. 25 against the Bucs in London.

That should get the brits out to the game and give the networks plenty of topicality.

Clicking on the top display bar, or most of the other links, will get you past the initial splash screen web page and into the meat and potatoes of the site.

Here you will find an interesting assortment of 50th anniversary links and plenty of ways to increase fan involvement over the web.

You can download any number assortment of widgets such as:

The Calendar:


or

Patriot News and Blog updates:







The 50th anniversary part of the site is different than any other teams which I have viewed to date.

They do not have a "all time" team page or pick you best player page.

Instead, they have a pick your all time greatest top 10 moments in Patriots History.



















One can even leave comments on the selections.

Pretty Cool!

There is also a section on commemorative license plates and if you want a "low" number jersey plate, you can go online and bid for you favorite Patriot number in an auction.








Proceeds go to the Patriots Charity Organization.








So with a good clean web page, relevant material, unique 50th anniversary pages and promotional products and, oh yeah, a decent retro uniform....











Two thumbs up to the New England Patriots.

Next up: The New York Jets!

And you can view all the 50th anniversary team uniforms here and cast you own vote at the top left hand side of the post.

Cheers!