Some teams become champions through shrewd strategy. Some by dogged determination, and still others benefit from a heavy helping of luck.

WLUK Green Bay, Wis., is happy to admit it’s profited from all three. All season long, it’s been the LIN Fox affiliate’s good fortune to be tied to the winning performance of the beloved locals, the Packers.

WLUK’s football audience is the biggest in the nation among local NFL telecasts, often surpassing a 50 rating.

The winning association begins during the pre-season.

Last August we told you how this LIN Television Fox affiliate had turned an otherwise ordinary intra-squad scrimmage into a major statewide event.

In a state where season tickets are held for generations, Fox 11 Packers Family Night is the only way young families can ever hope to see their heroes play in person. This joint Packers-WLUK promotion has grown steadily since it debuted in 1999.

“It’s all about great local content for the people of Northeast Wisconsin and the advertisers love it,” said WLUK Vice President and General Manager Jay Zollar as the station and the team prepared for the NFC Championship game against the New York Giants that would determine who would represent the conference in the Super Bowl, Feb. 3 in Glendale, Ariz.

WLUK was also fortunate that it did not lose any of its lucrative Packers broadcasts to NBC. That network has first dibs on games for its Sunday Night Football telecasts.

But despite widespread interest in the nationally popular Packers and their  quarterback, Brett Favre, who is hinting at retirement, NBC consistently chose other games.

That meant plenty of action for WLUK. The sales and marketing team took advantage of every game with special follow-up reports on the 5 p.m. and 9 o’clock newscasts.

As they have for the past several football seasons, sponsors have lined up to be seen on Inside The Huddle With Donald Driver, every Monday night at 5:30 p.m., where the Packers wide receiver has proven as adept on camera as he is on the gridiron.

“Having Donald Driver on our air makes our coverage more exciting, especially when the Packers come off a win,” says Zollar. “And once the Packers got into the postseason, it gave us the opportunity to turn the second half hour of our 9 p.m. newscast into a Playoff Report.” 

The nightly analysis appears both on air and online.

“We use the Internet all the time,” says Zollar. “We have coverage online from Lambeau Field that’s not available on air due to normal programming restraints.”

Zollar even added to the online excitement himself last week, going on camera to taunt opposing quarterback Eli Manning who has frequently mentioned that his favorite TV show is reruns of Seinfeld.

Zollar declared that he was pulling the sitcom from WLUK’s Saturday schedule, when Manning was expected to be in town, inviting viewers to vote for a replacement show. The stunt drew a lot of attention not only in Green Bay, but even in NewYork. It prompted Jerry Seinfeld to send Manning the complete works of Seinfeld on DVD.

The playoff hoopla lent luster to other projects at WLUK. The station was able to jump start the launch of its new weekend edition of Good Day, Wisconsin with live reports from the Atrium complex at Lambeau Field.

Sunday’s show focused on all the pre-game festivities, says Zollar. “We’re going to be all over the fans who have been there since the night before. It’s going to be absolutely frigid, so there’ll be some great stories about what people are doing there in below zero weather.”

And for the NFC Championship game itself? “We’re going to be all hands on deck Sunday night. We’ve got our weekday anchor crew anchoring Sunday night and our Sunday night anchors doing live shots from the field with fans and at the trophy presentation. And we’ll have special field reports all day which we’ll post throughout the day online. 

The postseason also won WLUK the chance for three more lucrative weeks of Donald Driver. “And if they win this Sunday we’ll do Donald Driver again on Monday. And in fact if they win, we’re already talking about having a Donald Driver show from Phoenix where Donald and a couple of the other players can tell us what it’s like to be in Phoenix during Super Bowl week.”

Alas, the luck of the Packers and WLUK finally ran out last night at cold (minus 3 degrees) Lambeau. In overtime, the Giants broke a 20-20 tie with an unlikely 47-yard field goal by Lawrence Tynes.

But WLUK’s advance planning even allows for such disappointment. There’s still one more Monday Playoff Report. And plans are already underway for another Fox11 Family Night next August.

“Northeast Wisconsin residents really do perceive this as a Fox 11 event,” said Zollar. “We’ve already got e-mails asking about tickets for next year.”

Building local programming around the Packers is expensive, said Zollar. “But we think it’s important to do if you’re going to be a real leader and a strong station in a local market. And we’re fortunate in that the new revenue we are seeing is certainly helping us to offset those expenses.”

Market Share by Arthur Greenwald showcases stories about sales, promotion and local programming every Monday in TVNEWSDAY. Have you run a sales promotion into the end zone lately? We’d love to cheer you on. Send the details to Arthur at greenwald@tvnewsday.com.