Why a Furniture Store Is Risking $50M on UConn Basketball

This season, Jordan’s Furniture launched a promotion: If both the UConn men’s and women’s basketball programs reach the national championship game, it will refund all purchases made between Jan. 20 and March 1. That’s about $50 million worth of sales revenue.

Now, the promotion from the Massachusetts-based furniture company is close to being realized, thanks to the UConn women’s program’s decisive 70–52 win against Notre Dame in the Elite Eight, and the last-second three-pointer from Braylon Mullins that sent the men’s program to the Final Four in improbable fashion. 

Despite the $50 million risk, Jordan’s Furniture is rooting for both Huskies programs. It certainly helps that the company has a promotion insurance policy.

“People think, ‘Oh, Eliot doesn’t want them to win,’” former president Eliot Tatelman, who recently passed the major furniture retailer down to his sons, told Front Office Sports. “Of course I want them to win! We buy insurance!”

Tatelman declined to name the insurer, but he explained that Jordan’s Furniture is committed to refunding the full amount if both Huskies programs make it to the title game. The company itself, he said, has sold off some of the risk to other insurance companies as well, so it won’t be on the hook for all of it.

Origin of the Deal

The furniture brand was first founded by Tatelman’s grandfather and was passed down to Tatelman and his brother Barry who took over in the 1970s. Then, in 1999, the family struck a deal to sell the company to Berkshire Hathaway, run by Warren Buffett—but retained operation control of the brand.

The furniture retailer has made this type of promise to customers before. 

Over lunch with colleagues in 2007, Tatelman came up with the idea to wager on the Boston Red Sox. The idea, signed off by Buffett himself, promised refunds if the Red Sox won the World Series. They did. Jordan’s Furniture ended up giving out $30 million in free items, Tatelman estimated. At the time, the company also had an insurance policy, just as it does for the UConn deal.

Similarly, in 2022, a Texas furniture store, Gallery Furniture, had to pay up on a similar bet. Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale was on the hook for millions of dollars after he offered customers who spent at least $3,000 double their money back if the Astros won the World Series. When the team succeeded, he covered the cost from the whopping $75 million winnings he collected after placing $10 million in bets on an Astros championship.

Offbeat promotions like these have become synonymous with Jordan’s Furniture—and Tatelman has become a frequent TV and radio personality. The retailer has offered several similar bets over the years—but none have paid out since the 2007 Red Sox World Series win.

As the Huskies continue to win, the UConn promotion could change that record.

This year’s deal came about when Jordan’s Furniture began to look for ways to do a Connecticut-specific promotion, after it recently opened stores in the state, Tatelman said. It approached UConn and signed a larger sponsorship deal with the school’s athletic department that made Jordan’s Furniture the official furniture store of Huskies athletics—which also included commercials with Sarah Strong, Silas Demary Jr., and the Husky mascot. This promotion was part of that deal. 

Immeasurable Value

Tatelman says promotions like these provide an unquantifiable boost for the company due to the visibility they offer. (It helps Tatelman isn’t concerned about having to lose $50 million in revenue.)

Take 2007, for example: “I was on the float with David Ortiz and Manny [Ramírez] when they had the parade. Customers went nuts. Everybody told everybody. It made us, like, a real big company, and the excitement of it. Everybody was talking about it. Just like you’re calling me now—all the major stations called me doing interviews, and it built up the company,” he said. 

The UConn promotion is already paying off, too. Tatelman has done several interviews with media already ahead of the men’s and women’s Final Fours. Jordan’s Furniture has also gone viral on social media, with one post alone about the promotion gleaning 1.5 million views and 22,000 likes.

The closer the deal gets to fruition, the more marketing value Jordan’s Furniture gets.

“If they lost the first game, would it be as strong? Probably not, because nobody cares. But now, as it’s getting close to the end, and they’ve only got two more games to win, and they’ve won the others, this is getting very exciting, and it’s putting us more on the map,” he said. “Everybody’s watching it. And everybody that bought furniture and this happens—if this happens, and they get free furniture, every person is gonna tell everybody they know. ‘I just got a whole new living room for nothing!’”