The Cows Go to the College Football Championship
By 2005, we had renewed our three-year contract two times for the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. Regionally, the bowl had succeeded, selling out year after year. Participants and fans were telling us and the bowl staff that the game was unlike any other bowl experience out there. It wasn’t just a game; they enjoyed genuine hospitality while they engaged in a truly fun experience. On the national stage, however, the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl was not in the top ten bowls, principally defined by team payouts and TV ratings. We all wanted to enhance the game and the entire bowl brand—what it stood for, the fan experience, as well as the experience for teams and the media.
Although corporations were paying millions of dollars for the right to have their names attached to bowl games, the media often ignored the sponsor. The Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl remained the “Peach Bowl” in many, perhaps most, media references. Nokia at that time sponsored the Sugar Bowl, FedEx the Orange Bowl, Tostitos the Fiesta Bowl, and other companies had the same issue.
Sponsorships provided between 30 and 45 percent of the cash flow for a typical bowl, yet the media seldom gave sponsors credit for what they were contributing to college football’s postseason.
For the better part of two years, I was meeting regularly with Gary Stokan and Leeman Bennett, the former Atlanta Falcons head coach who was chairman of the bowl. Each time I was asking, in one way or another, “How can we help you guys take the bowl to the next level so that you are willing to give us the name—a win-win for both of us?”
We had three complementary goals:
• Offer greater team payouts
• With the higher payouts, renegotiate contracts with the conferences to get higher ranked teams
• Better teams would lead to greater audiences and potentially larger network rights fees for the bowl
We believed we could become one of the best, if not the best, non-BCS game, and we wanted to use that success to negotiate with ESPN for an exclusive time slot on New Year’s Eve. We had done well with December 31, and we wanted to get it locked in and unopposed—another little Blue Ocean. And we were willing to entertain a higher title sponsor rights fee to make all this happen.
As an added bonus, we (Peach Bowl, Inc., and Chick-fil-A) could use improved performance to also generate more money for charity. And in the back of our minds, we also hoped that if the major conferences ever changed from the BCS format to a four-team playoff championship format, it might help position the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl to bid as a host site. After a lot of brainstorming and negotiating, the three of us put a deal together, and Leeman pre-shopped the “Chick-fil-A Bowl” package to the bowl’s executive committee.
At a meeting of the executive committee, Bob Coggins (Peach Bowl, Inc., board member and former Delta CMO) said that eight or nine years earlier, he never would have supported changing the name to the Chick-fil-A Bowl. But seeing what Chick-fil-A had meant for the bowl, he supported the change. The Peach Bowl, Inc., board agreed. So the name was changed to the Chick-fil-A Bowl. We were able to accomplish our mutual goals for higher team payout, higher ranked teams, higher TV rights fees, and more charity dollars.
About the same time, Gary Stokan floated the idea of a second, lower-tier bowl game for Atlanta. Gary, Leeman, and I discussed whether the city could handle a second game, whether our volunteer infrastructure would support it, and whether it might be lost in the bowl landscape.
The NCAA had recently announced that schools could add a twelfth game to their schedules, and Leeman asked whether we should consider a game at the beginning of the season, like the former Kickoff Classic in New Jersey in the 1980s and ’90s. I loved the idea on the spot, and said if Atlanta had such a game, we would be interested in sponsoring it. Gary liked the kickoff idea, too, and dropped the second bowl possibility to pursue this.
Not long after, Gary and our sponsorship team were in New York working on the marketing calendar with ESPN and the bowl. ESPN’s college football program director, Dave Brown, and Gary had been talking with the University of Alabama and Clemson University about the possibility of playing in the first Chick-fil-A Kickoff, and they were working hard for a commitment from Alabama. While we were at ESPN, they were on the phone with Alabama. Dave said we would need to commit more financial resources to get Alabama into the game, and I agreed that Chick-fil-A would help with that. Gary got a two-year commitment from Alabama head coach Nick Saban, and that got the Chick-fil-A Kickoff off the ground. ESPN gave us a great time slot, and Clemson committed to play Alabama in the inaugural game. The next year Alabama played Virginia Tech.
Looking back, Coach Saban was the final piece of the puzzle. As of this writing, Alabama has played in the game five times and won every time.
Shortly after the first Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game, Gary Stokan came to us with another college football opportunity for Atlanta. The National Football Foundation, which operates the College Football Hall of Fame, was considering moving the site out of South Bend, Indiana. Gary thought we could get the Hall of Fame in Atlanta. Steve Hatchell, president of the foundation, said he was interested in Atlanta, so Gary recommended to the Peach Bowl Inc., board of directors that we raise the money to build and operate the Hall of Fame.
After months of discussion, the board chose to do that. Gary asked the board to put up the initial $5 million of seed money to start doing the real work of searching for a site and designing the experience. We established Atlanta Hall Management, Inc., created a separate board of directors, and I was asked to serve as chairman.
When Gary and I asked Truett to match the bowl’s $5 million commitment for the project, Truett agreed. He liked the concept and was happy for the opportunity to support his hometown in this way. Not long after that, Frank Poe, president of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, approached Gary and the board and said he wanted to create a better “front door” to the Georgia World Congress Center than a parking lot. Would we be interested in the Marietta Street parking lot on the east side of the GWCC?
We were! Atlanta Hall Management signed a long-term lease for the property adjacent to the GWCC, across the street from Centennial Olympic Park and an easy walk to the Georgia Dome, Philips Arena, and the future site of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
About a year into the project, Gary Stokan stepped down as president of the Hall of Fame to focus full-time on growing the Chick-fil-A Bowl enterprise, and John Stephenson, formerly of Troutman Sanders law firm, was named president.
We intentionally designed the space to be a great guest interaction that would mimic a game-day experience, not a museum, and we had selected the key vendors and other suppliers to build it, but we were still short several million dollars. We were within two weeks of the deadline to meet the line-of-credit contract with the bank, and I was losing sleep. Like all the other sponsors to date, Chick-fil-A had signed a five-year financial commitment. Then, lying in bed one morning, it occurred to me that Chick-fil-A was not just another sponsor. We were highly invested in college football, the bowl, the kickoff games, and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl Challenge golf event. Maybe we should be bringing more than money to the table. Maybe we could bring the Chick-fil-A guest experience into the Hall of Fame.
The next night I wrote a proposal for Chick-fil-A to be not the title sponsor but the presenting sponsor, with a thirty-year commitment. Our commitment would be to help Atlanta Hall Management create a guest experience that delivered the unexpected: history, game-day traditions, heroes, wrapped in great hospitality. And a thirty-year marketing partner. I sent the proposal to Dan Cathy, and within forty-eight hours (bless his heart!), he said, “Let’s do it.” Then, inside of one week, I presented it to the National Football Foundation and the Atlanta Hall Management boards, and they approved it. It was a wonderful demonstration of Dan picking up the mantle from his dad and saying, “I understand college football has been very good for Chick-fil-A, and this will be good for Atlanta.” We met the bank covenants, which prompted additional sponsors to join us since they now could see the path for the Hall of Fame to open.
With the advent of touch-screen and radio-activated technology and videos, visitors to the College Football Hall of Fame and Chick-fil-A Fan Experience could walk through the space and find anything they wanted on any Hall of Fame member, any institution (more than 725) that plays college football, any bowl game that’s ever been played, the history of any championship, anything to do with college football. Division I, Division II, Division III, historically black colleges and universities, all of it. They could also engage with all the traditions fans love, like tailgating, bands, and cheerleaders, and relive great game memories and game calls. It was all in there.
The College Football Hall of Fame and Chick-fil-A Fan Experience now entertains more than 250,000 visitors and two hundred events each year, and there’s no reason to think it won’t continue to grow.
Since I retired, my successor, Jon Bridges, has elevated Chick-fil-A’s marketing commitment to the Hall even further, recognized by the official name being changed to the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame.
Seeking the Final CFP Bowl Slot
As we were building equity around the Chick-fil-A Bowl and the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game, the “Power Five” conferences and Notre Dame created the College Football Playoff concept: a four-team playoff with the semifinal games rotating among six bowl cities. They made it clear that they were going to protect the four BCS (Bowl Championship Series) bowls (Rose, Orange, Sugar, Fiesta). Also, Jerry Jones was building a new Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, and because the Cotton Bowl had a tremendous legacy, Dallas would probably be the fifth site. There was only one CFP bowl site to be determined.
Atlanta was in the mix, along with Orlando, Jacksonville, San Antonio, and San Diego. Atlanta had great assets to offer, with plenty of hotels, the Georgia World Congress Center, the new Atlanta Falcons’ stadium that would open in 2017, and the history of an incredible bowl experience that Peach Bowl, Inc., and Chick-fil-A had created together.
The financial relationships between ESPN, the College Football Playoff, and the bowls themselves would be significantly different. The CFP was negotiating a deal with ESPN for the rights to broadcast these seven games, as well as the marketing rights to use all the trademarks and the marketing affiliation with the six bowl games and the National Championship. This aggregate deal of seven games every year was officially the “College Football Playoff.”
If Atlanta’s bid was selected, Atlanta would be guaranteed one of the top six bowl games every year. Every third year, we would host one of the CFP semifinal games, and the bowl title sponsor would have marketing rights and advertising content in not only the Atlanta game, but all seven CFP games.
At the same time, if the CFP selected the Chick-fil-A Bowl, then the Chick-fil-A Bowl board of directors would give up much of its control of the game (team selection, TV contract, ticket pricing, etc.). Inherently, the bowl would end its exclusive affiliations with the SEC and the ACC.
For Chick-fil-A, if we wanted to remain the bowl’s title sponsor, our investment in the game and the entire college football season would likely triple. Let me assure you, it was not an automatic yes at the home office. But by that time, we had invested sixteen years in the bowl, and our expanding presence in college football had yielded significant brand awareness and relationships across the country. If we didn’t commit, then one of two things would happen: the CFP would choose Atlanta and another brand would step up and become the title sponsor of the bowl; or Atlanta would not be chosen and our bowl would become just another of the thirty-plus non-CFP post-season games.
The multistep bid process continued over several months in 2012 and 2013.
The CFP would select the six bowls, then negotiate a contract with ESPN. After that, the network would negotiate with sponsors. I went to Truett and explained that if we supported the bowl in its bid with the CFP, we would have to follow up with a multiyear financial commitment to ESPN. But we would enjoy national visibility with this audience at levels we had never experienced. Inherently, it would support our national growth.
Once again, he agreed that college football and its fans had been “very good for Chick-fil-A,” and he supported pursuing a commitment.
To make a long story short, the CFP selected Atlanta’s bid to become one of the six cities in the rotation, with the stipulation that “Peach” be brought back to the name. Once again, the game would be the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. That was not ideal, but not a deal killer for us, because eight years of the “Chick-fil-A Bowl” had established a strong connection between our brand and the game.
The first College Football Playoff would follow the 2014 season, and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl would host its first semifinal game following the 2016 season. If any initiative announced that Chick-fil-A had become a national brand, the College Football Playoff was it.
Opening in Manhattan
We were becoming a national brand before we had opened restaurants nationwide. That’s the only way to explain opening our first restaurants in a suburb of Portland and Seattle with each having first-day sales of sixty-five thousand dollars. The brand was known, and there was pent-up demand for it. Some of that demand might have been from southeastern transplants, but not all of it.
For years before we opened our first Manhattan store, Kelly Ripa was telling Regis Philbin and later Michael Strahan on their morning TV show how much she loved Chick-fil-A. The first Manhattan store opened on the day after her forty-fifth birthday in October 2015, and she insisted she was going to camp out with the first one hundred customers so she could get free Chick-fil-A for a year. That kind of love helped create demand for Chick-fil-A and also created fun connections.
When the store opened at 1000 Sixth Avenue, AdAge.com announced that Chick-fil-A Operator Oscar Fittipaldi was “the newest celebrity to arrive in New York.”9 The first Manhattan location was a major financial investment, but when it came to introducing Chick-fil-A to not only Manhattan but the world, this location was another crucial step. Also, we were intentionally developing our prototype in-line urban design to take to other cities. There is no greater laboratory than Manhattan to do that!
It turned out there was even more demand than we realized in Manhattan. During the first full year of operation, that store enjoyed more than $10 million in sales. It was a very expensive rent deal and it was expensive to build, but at that volume, Oscar did fine. Like Kelly Ripa, a lot of New Yorkers who had been waiting for us to come were excited when we got there, and they showed up.
As far as brand consciousness, we were on the way to becoming a national brand. Yet there was plenty of opportunity to grow. Coca-Cola once announced, “We’re going be ubiquitous.” And they did just that. They started in the United States, and then they went from there to the world.
We still have years of opportunity in the USA. If we penetrated just the top one hundred markets in the United States at the same rate we have penetrated Atlanta today, we would have more than eight thousand restaurants. We’re a little more than twenty-three hundred restaurants at this writing. Chick-fil-A could be blessed with a long runway of opportunities in this great country.