BOCA RATON, Fla. — Which one doesn’t belong: galleryfurniture.com, Poulon Weed-Eater, or BBVA Compass?
Trick question. All three are former bowl game sponsors, an often humorous part of college football that crosses over into pop culture.
Who else can’t wait to see a coach get a mayonnaise bath at the Duke’s Mayo Bowl?
The question asked most often at this time of year is — whether obscure like the RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl or a national brand like the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl — are bowl sponsorships worth it?
The answer is complicated. It depends on which network airs the game, the company’s goals, and how the product or business is integrated into the broadcast. But more often than not, the response is a resounding yes.
“People ask, ‘Why are there so many random brands or websites sponsoring bowls?’” said Jonathan Jensen, an associate professor of sport administration at the University of North Carolina. “The reason is because these types of sponsored events are extremely effective at taking a brand from zero percent awareness to 50 percent. If you slap your name on one of these made-for-TV events like a college basketball tournament or a bowl game, boom, you can quickly increase your awareness because millions of people are going to watch it.”
The phenomenon started in 1985 when Sunkist announced a partnership with the Fiesta Bowl, becoming the first corporate bowl game sponsor. The five-year deal provided the Fiesta Bowl with an additional $500,000 in payout for participating teams, boosting the then-14-year-old game into elite status, alongside the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Cotton Bowls.
USF&G, FedEx, and Mobil soon followed, and the commercialization of bowl games has been booming ever since.
“Some of the objectives for some of these brands and companies might not ever be something the general public knows,” said Jim Andrews, founder and CEO of A-Mark Partnership Strategies, which helps companies strengthen brand awareness.
“There are a lot of business-to-business reasons for taking these partnerships. If it’s a key market for the company, this might just be a way to ingratiate themselves with the civic leaders and political leaders in a certain area. Sometimes, it’s as simple as it’s a good venue for hosting clients and customers. In general, they can be very good marketing investments if they’re done right.”
This helps explain the role that Chick-fil-A plays for the Peach Bowl, the Idaho Potato Bowl, and even the RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl, as RoofClaim.com has eight offices in Florida, including one in Boca Raton.
What’s in it for little-known companies such as HomeTown Lenders, Radiance Technologies, and Union Home Mortgage? Millions of eyeballs.
Every December, college football fans complain about the glut of bowls and undeserving 6-6 teams. Yet they continue to watch the games in mass quantities. Nothing illustrates the popularity of college football quite like the 2016 New Mexico Bowl having a higher television rating than No. 6 Kentucky defeating No. 7 North Carolina 103-100 in the college basketball game of the year on the same day.
Ratings have rendered in-person bowl game attendance largely irrelevant.
Last season, the Bahamas Bowl between Toledo and Middle Tennessee State — played at 11:30 a.m. on a Friday — had nearly 1 million viewers. The Independence Bowl, broadcast on ABC, had more than 3 million viewers tune in to watch BYU and UAB. The Armed Forces Bowl between Army and Missouri attracted an audience of 2.57 million.
“Football has become so ingrained in our culture, and college football is now by far the No. 2 most popular sport in the United States,” Jensen said. “The NBA and Major League Baseball are not even close now. All you have to do is look at the ratings for Ohio State-Michigan and compare it to the last several years of the NBA Finals or the World Series. There wasn’t a single NBA Finals game and World Series game that out-rated Ohio State and Michigan.”
ESPN owns 17 bowl games, a majority of which are played before Christmas. They’re operated by ESPN Events and essentially act as programming for the network, avoiding paying rights fees and filling inventory during a time when people are home for holiday vacation.
So RoofClaim.com isn’t simply acting as a sponsor for the Boca Raton Bowl. The Georgia-based company secured the sponsorship as part of a larger package of ad spots across ESPN’s family of networks. Jensen estimated that it’s a seven-figure ad buy.
“It gives us a ton of exposure dealing with ESPN,” RoofClaim.com CEO Brian Wedding said. “I’d say this is one of the cheaper games to get into. Why I love college sports is you’re getting the fans that went to that school or are interested in that school, their kids usually follow along that path, and then you get the kids who are thinking about going to that school.
“They’re going to be future homeowners. Roofs are like tires. At some point, you’re going to be changing them. We have no brick and mortar in Toledo, but we’re going to roof houses there through a contractor network.”
RoofClaim.com is no stranger to sports sponsorships, as they partner with the AAC championship game, the LSU and Kentucky athletic departments, and the Miami Dolphins.
“You’re getting a lot of bang for the buck,” Wedding said.
RoofClaim.com’s naming rights deals for Florida Atlantic’s basketball arena and the University of Central Florida football team were nixed by political pressure. Insurers pressed Florida legislators to intervene, accusing RoofClaim.com of unsavory insurance claim solicitation that has driven up insurance costs to exorbitant rates in the state of Florida.
The state’s powerful insurance lobby exerted force on FAU and UCF to kill the deals by threatening to withhold state funding, according to a 2020 story published in the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
No bowl game partnership has been more fruitful than Tostitos’ nearly two-decade run with the Fiesta Bowl. The tortilla chip became synonymous with the game, similar to Staples Center, Gillette Stadium, and Heinz Field, where the sponsorship is unobtrusive and the name recall exists even after the naming rights expire.
Brent Musberger elevated the brand more than anyone. In 2002, the legendary broadcaster ended Ohio State’s dramatic 14-9 win over Michigan by exclaiming, “Let’s party, Columbus! Their 29th Big Ten championship, and it is huge as Maurice Clarett, Jim Tressell, and the Buckeyes will head to Arizona, where they will play for all the Tostitos in the Fiesta Bowl!”
He made an even more iconic call in the 2011 BCS national championship game, declaring just before Auburn’s Wes Byrum kicked the game-winning field goal, “This is for all the Tostitos.”
“From a corporate sponsorship standpoint, it’s extremely easy to justify the spend that you’re making because it’s mostly baked on eyeballs and impressions,” Jensen said.
Brand integration during bowl telecasts used to consist of an executive doing the coin toss and perhaps an interview in the broadcast booth. Bowls are now three-and-a-half-hour infomercials for the brands associated with them.
And there’s evidence of a subliminal impact on consumers. Researchers have shown that if you attend a sporting event or watch on TV and a particular brand is spotlighted, there’s a higher likelihood that you will purchase one of their products in the future.
“It doesn’t make sense for Coca-Cola, or Anheuser-Busch, or Apple to put their name on the Bahamas Bowl,” Andrews said. “They don’t need the visibility.”
RoofClaim.com resides in a different tax bracket, and RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl has a nice ring to it.
First Published December 18, 2022, 4:09 p.m.
