MW 'Is this really what college bowl games have become?' Critics see brands like Pop-Tarts competing with football for attention.

By Charles Passy

Notre Dame decided to pass up an invitation to play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl

Head coach P.J. Fleck of the University of Minnesota gets a mayo bath after winning the Duke's Mayo Bowl against Virginia Tech on Jan. 3, 2025.

Ever heard of a mayonnaise-themed bowl game? Or gridiron veneration of a toaster pastry? These days, the college football postseason is about a lot more than touchdowns and field goals.

In case you missed the memo, bowl games have increasingly turned into marketing showcases for all sorts of brands, which pay big-time sponsorship dollars for the privilege and then serve up goofy rituals galore. And with the bowl season kicking off on Saturday, football fans can expect plenty of hijinks, especially in games scheduled around the holidays.

Take, for example, the Pop-Tarts Bowl (Dec. 27), where the winning players get to devour - what else? - a giant Pop-Tart. Or the Duke's Mayo Bowl (Jan. 2), where, instead of the usual Gatorade victory shower, the winning coach gets bathed in - what else? - a supersized serving of mayonnaise.

Some say it's all good, clean fun - notwithstanding the condiment havoc - and a way to bring notice to the games themselves. That's even more true since the NCAA, the governing body for college sports, formalized a playoff system, now with 12 teams, that exists outside the bowl schedule.

And the bowl games can indeed get noticed, as evidenced by the moments that go viral - cue that mayo-covered coach - and the story after story written about the spectacle (and the game).

"It's creating and capturing attention," said Dan Lobring, a sports-marketing veteran who's a senior vice president with Stretch PR, a Chicago-based firm.

Others say it's not exactly honoring the noble tradition of college athletics - and that it could backfire on both the games and the brands.

That became a talking point when Notre Dame, home to one of the top-ranked football programs in the country this season, turned down an offer to play in this year's Pop-Tarts Bowl after not being selected for the postseason playoff and thus losing a shot at a 14th national championship.

Some saw Notre Dame's decision as a diss of the brand-oriented bowl system. Or, as one scribe put it, the school didn't want to have its own brand sullied by "a gigantic breakfast side dish."

One football fan chimed in on Facebook with a similar sentiment, sharing the logos of the Pop-Tarts Bowl, the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl (Dec. 31) and the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl (Dec. 31) and offering this observation: "Is this really what college bowl games have become? I would decline as well!"

But if there is a bowl-branding backlash brewing, it's only just getting its footing. This year, there's at least one more curious addition to the lineup of sponsors - Bush's Beans, which is lending its name to the Boca Raton Bowl in the Florida city of the same name. The contest (Dec. 23) will now be known as the Bush's Boca Raton Bowl of Beans, with the sponsor promising plenty of "bean-tastic surprises" on game day.

Pressed for details, Bush's senior vice president of marketing, Stephen Palacios, wouldn't get more specific about the possibility of, say, bean showers. But he did say this: "We're going to create a visual never to be forgotten."

And that's not even getting into whatever festivities may take place alongside other gridiron tilts, such as the Scooter's Coffee Frisco Bowl (Dec. 23), the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl (Dec. 27) and the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl (Dec. 27) - yes, the rapper has his own game, tied to his Gin & Juice alcoholic-beverage brand.

Pop-Tarts mascots shake hands before the start of the 2024 Pop-Tarts Bowl between the University of Miami and Iowa State.

None of this comes cheap for the brands. Bowl organizers - which can include volunteer committees, sports foundations and even ESPN $(DIS)$ - generally won't discuss sponsorship costs, and neither do the brands. But it's been reported that sponsorship amounts may be as modest as $375,000 for a lower-tier bowl game but run to the tens of millions of dollars for a high-profile one.

The payoff is all tied to exposure: College football commands a big audience - and one that keeps getting bigger. Through midseason this year, ABC had recorded an average viewership of 7.1 million per game, which marked a 23% increase over the prior year.

But for brands, experts say the goal is creating viral moments that expand the audience far beyond the audience watching a game as it's being played.

Craig Agranoff, a marketing professional who teaches at Florida Atlantic University, said that what comes to mind when he thinks about the Bush's Boca Raton Bowl of Beans, which will be played on his institution's home turf, is not the prospective outcome of the University of Louisville-vs.-University of Toledo matchup. Nor is that outcome, or even the quality of the contest, the bean brand's chief concern.

"Bush's didn't pay to be associated with a football game," Agranoff said. " They paid to own December's funniest sports meme."

This can backfire, Agranoff observed. "An activation could flop and become a punchline."

Michael Mondello, a professor in the University of South Florida's Vinik Sport & Entertainment Management Program, also cast some doubt on whether bowl-game sponsors can plausibly all achieve bang for their buck. There may be some winners, but there will also be losers, he said.

"It's hard to say," he noted, "[that] all companies are getting great value."

But for Pop-Tarts, part of the Kellanova family of brands, the bang appears to be there.

Leslie Serro, vice president of marketing for Pop-Tarts, said the toaster pastry saw its highest volume of brand searches in more than 15 years on last year's with the Pop-Tarts Bowl day. A spike in sales quickly followed, with an additional 8 million Pop-Tarts being sold in the month following the game, played in Orlando, Fla., and featuring the University of Miami and Iowa State University.

Little wonder that the brand is expanding its bowl-game-day efforts this year, adding more Pop-Tarts "mascots" at the event, with fans deciding which oversized pastry will be devoured during the postgame celebration.

The Pop-Tarts folks are calling their bowl "The People's National Championship." So much for the true college football playoffs and the national championship game, which is set for Jan. 19 in Miami.

All the hoopla wasn't enough to woo Notre Dame, which would have squared off against Brigham Young University for this year's toaster-treat trophy. BYU will play Georgia Tech instead.

Notre Dame officials have publicly citicized playoff organizers for bypassing their storied program - which dropped its first two games this fall and went undefeated thereafter - but they also indicated that in forgoing the bowl game, they weren't disrespecting the Pop-Tarts brand. Rather, the school felt it was better to focus on the season ahead, according to the school's athletic director, Pete Bevacqua, speaking on the "Dan Patrick Show," a national sports-talk program.

"The irony ... is that I love Pop-Tarts. I particularly love the brown-sugar tarts," Bevacqua said. "I probably eat too many of them."

-Charles Passy

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December 13, 2025 14:54 ET (19:54 GMT)

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