THE MODERATOR: Good morning and welcome. Thank you for joining us as we speak to the extremely bright future of the Pinstripe Bowl and its new title partner.
The Pinstripe Bowl was first played in 2010, and in just 12 short years, it has become an indelible fixture in the heart of bowl season, featuring two premier conferences in the Big Ten and the ACC.
This year's game will be played on Thursday, December 29th, at 2:00 p.m. here in Yankee Stadium in New York City, one of the most unique stages and settings in all of college football. Additionally, the game will be nationally broadcast by ESPN.
Without further ado, let's meet the members of our dais. On the far left of the stage, Nick Carparelli, executive director of bowl season. In the center, Mark Holtzman, executive director of the soon to be renamed Pinstripe Bowl. And on the right, Peter Ballantyne, CEO of Bad Boy Mowers.
Let's also acknowledge in the audience, A.J. Edds. A.J. is the senior director of football operations for the Big Ten Conference.
At this time, it's my pleasure to turn the microphone over to Mark Holtzman for today's announcement.
MARK HOLTZMAN: Thank you, Michael. Welcome, everyone. This is a great day. Pete, Lindsey, Tanya, Nathan, Robert, Brian, Dan, and Tristan -- I think I got everyone -- welcome to New York on behalf of the Pinstripe Bowl, now to be called the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl, and on behalf of the New York Yankees organization.
Sounds good. I love that title, Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl. I like it.
This day would never have occurred without the help of so many people, and it truly takes a village to make something like this possible. I want to acknowledge a few of them. Chris Foy from the Legends. Could you raise your hand, please. This would never have occurred, this partnership, without Chris. His expertise in this area is second to none. I've been in business for close to 40 years, and he's as good as it gets in this business. Chris, we all owe you a lot, you and your organization, for getting this done. Thank you.
Pete and Lindsey from Bad Boy Mowers, you're two visionaries in the business who understood the sum total of two brands who are leaders in their respective worlds joining forces on a year round and multiyear basis, along with two premier sports conferences in the Big Ten and the ACC, and that's a tough combination to beat.
Michael Tusiani, could you raise your hand, senior vice president of sponsorships for the Yankees. Quite simply, none of this would be possible without Michael. He and Chris Foy worked closely together, day after day, night after night, to get this done. And his endless supply of wisdom, energy, and optimism was second to none. Thank you, Michael.
Also, Tony Bruno, who's not here today, the CFO of Yankee global enterprises, he was with us every step of the way on this with us, giving us counsel, and this couldn't have been accomplished without his support throughout.
And of course, Yankee president Randy Levine. He's the biggest supporter of all of college football in the building. He was involved with myself and Nick, believe it or not. Nick will get into that. Right from the beginning of creating this game, and he realized the value of bowls on the college football landscape.
A lot of people told us a long time ago it couldn't be done. Randy knew it could be done, and he willed this game, and he's been a part of all of our success over the last 12 years. He saw the value right away also of partnering up with Bad Boy Mowers. He saw the potential of the two brands working together, and he was supportive from day one of this partnership.
I'd also like to thank the team on the ground who made this all happen, who made the last few days happen, a lot of whom are here in the room. John Mosley, Matt Fox, Ilana Avergun, Alexa Klein, Riley Collier, and Jess Harran, thanks to all of you for supporting this. Couldn't have been done without you.
Pete and Lindsey, I know that you had many different title sponsorship opportunities, not only on the college bowl landscape, but in other pro and college sports as well. I mean, you're already the title sponsor of a major basketball tournament, the Atlantis?
PETER BALLANTYNE: Battle 4 Atlantis.
MARK HOLTZMAN: The Bad Boy Mowers Battle for Atlantis in the Bahamas in November, which had become one of the top basketball tournaments in the country and you're getting a lot of exposure with that and it gets some of the top universities in the country. So you really had your choice on the landscape.
Especially coming out of COVID, there were a lot of bowls that were looking for title sponsors. There were a lot of other properties in both professional and amateur sports looking for title sponsors. Yet you chose the Pinstripe Bowl, now officially the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl, as your marquee platform in college football, and we're eternally grateful and thrilled that you did.
Being the title sponsor of the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl gives Bad Boy Mowers a national platform in partnership with the most iconic sports brand in the world and in the most famous sports venue in the world. So I think it's a great combination, alongside with the ACC and the Big Ten, marquee brands all across the board, and a lot of success is definitely going to happen in the future.
Since our first game in 2010 -- I can't believe it's that long, Nick -- with Syracuse and Kansas State, we've had many of the top universities in the country participate in our game -- Notre Dame, Penn State, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan State, Boston College, Syracuse, just to name a few. And we've also had some very memorable games, with Christian Hackenberg the year Penn State came off of probation taking it down the field in overtime to beat Boston College. Notre Dame versus Rutgers, sellout crowd. West Virginia versus Syracuse in the snow with Prince-Tyson Gulley rushing for 220 yards, a Pinstripe Bowl record.
We've had three sellouts, and we've had some good crowds for a lot of other games. In the last four years, we've had three years of over 4 million total eyeballs watching our game, which is kind of the gold plated number as far as ESPN is concerned, which puts us in the top 25 percent of television ratings for all college bowls, which we're very proud of.
In summary, we're a bowl on the rise, partnering up with a major brand on the rise in Bad Boy Mowers. Boy, does that Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl name ring and sound good. I saw the shirt today with the mark on it for the first time. It was waiting for me when I got here. I was thrilled to put it on.
So, Pete, on behalf of the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl, you have my pledge, as well as everyone else in this room and everyone who's listening, to make this bowl even bigger and better than ever in the future. We're thrilled and honored to be working with all of you.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Mark. Let's turn it over to Peter Ballantyne.
PETER BALLANTYNE: Thank you, Mark. I appreciate all those words. I will say the hospitality and really the professionalism of the team here at the Yankees really was extraordinary. That's a big part of it.
You can hear a lot of the enthusiasm from Mark here which rubbed off on Lindsey and I and the whole organization, which we've become very, very enthusiastic about this. We're very, very thrilled to be a part of the Pinstripe Bowl.
For Bad Boy Mowers, somebody had a quote -- I think it was Lindsey -- that I'm going to try to remember. She talked about how with Bad Boy Mowers we changed the game really in zero turn mowers. Here at the Pinstripe Bowl, we literally changed the game here at Yankee Stadium. I think it's a perfect match in that regard.
With Bad Boy, we are continuing to grow rapidly. We're really just a 20-year-old company, so fairly young, but have grown very rapidly throughout the country and really are growing very fast here in the territories of the Big Ten and the ACC right now. So this bowl game really provides us that opportunity.
A lot of our customers love college football. We love college football. I think it's just a perfect, perfect match for Bad Boy Mowers to extend our brand through that northern Midwest down through the East Coast and really present what is a fantastic company and a great product to a whole new market. That's why we're here. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Peter. We can hear from Nick Carparelli now.
NICK CARPARELLI: Thank you, Michael. Peter, Lindsey, on behalf of all 43 bowl games that are part of bowl season, we welcome you to the bowl season family.
I think in order to adequately explain what you're getting into here, I need to give a couple of short history lessons. Bowl games have been around for over 100 years. The first Rose Bowl started in 1902. It was really the only bowl game for a long time until 1935 when the Sun Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl came along, Gator Bowl came on a couple years later. So there were five in 1940. Over the course of the next 80 years, it grew from 5 to 43.
These bowl games are located in destinations like New York City, Pasadena, California, Miami, Florida, and everywhere in between. They're all very unique. They're unique experiences. Every bowl likes to showcase what's great about the community that they're located in. But the one thing they all have in common is they all create very meaningful and memorable experiences for the student-athletes and the universities who participate in them as well as the communities that host them. Bowl season is truly a celebration of college football every December.
In my career, I've been involved professionally with bowl games for a long time. At one point I estimate I've been to well over 100 bowl games. I've been to 30 different, unique bowl games. People often like to ask me, what is my favorite bowl game? That's a little bit like choosing your favorite child. My two sons are here, and I would never choose one over the other. But it doesn't take much for me to say that I do have a soft spot for one game in particular, and it's the Pinstripe Bowl.
Mark alluded to it earlier. Back in 2009 when this great stadium first opened, we initiated discussions. It was really a shared vision. At the time, I was deputy commissioner of the Big East Conference. We entered into discussions with the Yankees about starting the game here. It was through the great vision of the Yankee organization, the Steinbrenner family, Randy Levine, the president, that the Pinstripe Bowl was born. Mike Tusiani played a great role early on.
And at that point in time, Mark Holtzman, John Mosley stepped up to the plate, took the handoff, and they've been running with the ball for 13 years to evolve this game to the point where it is today. Matt Fox has played an integral role along the way as well.
We couldn't be more appreciative of what the Pinstripe Bowl over that period of time has done for college football in general and for bowl season specifically. So I want to thank the Yankees organization for that.
Finally, the reason we're here today, I want to once again welcome Bad Boy Mowers to the bowl season family. This partnership not only supports the Pinstripe Bowl, but it supports bowl season as a whole, and we really appreciate your investment in the sport.
I think you already know this, but you're a part of something very special. If you think about it, bowl season's one of the greatest and longest running traditions in American sports. It takes place every December. New York City is the greatest city in the world, especially over the holidays, and Yankee Stadium is home to the greatest sports franchise in the world, period.
On Thursday, December 29th, at 2:00 p.m., the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl will bring all of those great things together. So thank you for that.
THE MODERATOR: Nick, thank you very much.
Q. Peter, when you look to being out in the marketplace and looking for one of them, what specifically was it about this bowl that you were hearing and seeing from different people that you were talking to that made it attractive to you?
PETER BALLANTYNE: Well, I think, as Mark alluded to and as I mentioned, when we look for sponsorships, we really look for a marquee opportunity but also something that fits with our strategy and where we're going with our company and with our business.
College football was something that we had done a sponsorship for a former bowl game, to be unnamed, before that really went very well for us and worked very well within that market. So Lindsey and I were talking about the idea of re-entering a sponsorship for bowl game and bowl season. Like I said, college football is such a nice match for our customer base and where we sell mowers.
And as we are growing our company, we've really surged sort of in that East Coast, Northeast, across the northern Midwest. So this bowl game fit very nicely with that. Then the fact that it is very much -- you know, the 4 million eyeballs, it's very prestigious. It's after Christmas, in a nice spot.
Another really critical piece of it, which is an advantage over any other bowl game for a company like ours, is we have not only the bowl game but we have some of the New York Yankees assets really with Spring Training in February and through the season. We do outdoor power equipment. December is not the prime time to sell outdoor power equipment, but all through the balance of the year, we have the opportunity to really utilize some of these promotional benefits.
So all of those combined made this honestly just a perfect fit. That really was our rationale.
Q. I guess this is for either Peter or Mark. Just curious, you alluded just now, Peter, to some of the other elements as part of this sponsorship package. Curious what those might entail, any other noteworthy add-ons as part of the package here?
MARK HOLTZMAN: Well, it was not the words in Pete's mouth, but it was very important to Bad Boy Mowers, as Pete said, to have a year round partnership. The Pinstripe Bowl affords that opportunity. There will be significant signage opportunities, which you will start seeing tonight actually on the field for Bad Boy Mowers in conjunction with our baseball season.
It will start all the way beginning in Tampa at Spring Training, where they're going to have a lot of hospitality opportunities as well. Look, even in Spring Training we take sponsors on the field for batting practice with some of our key fielders, so there's a lot of possibilities.
You're going to see both electronic signage behind home plate, which the ACC and the Big Ten were kind enough, and we appreciate it, to incorporate the mark for the game with their signage, which played a major role in moving this partnership forward. You're going to see signage in left and right field by the foul poles, and you're also going to see Bad Boy Mowers operating promotionally during the baseball season leading into the football season.
Q. Obviously a lot of changes happening now with the Big Ten with UCLA and USC on their way in. To what degree did those changes and the creation of a truly coast-to-coast conference enhance the discussions around this partnership? Given this bowl's Big Ten ties.
MARK HOLTZMAN: The discussion actually started way before we knew that USC and UCLA were going on board with the Big Ten.
I can tell you that it clearly enhances the value, certainly from a television point of view, because you have two national brands that -- especially USC. USC is a year to year, for the most part, a national power. They also have a new head coach. There's a lot of excitement out there right now.
So clearly having two more brands also -- unless A.J. knows something I don't know and you're adding a few bowls to pick ahead of us -- I hope you're not doing that -- that we're going to have more of an opportunity, more of a buffet to pick from when we sit down with Bad Boy Mowers and figure out what's the best fit.
Pete, I think that we'll have more opportunities, right?
PETER BALLANTYNE: We'd be very happy to have USC or UCLA play, I think.
MARK HOLTZMAN: Get a little East Coast-West Coast in the game to get both audiences. That would be great. I think that only enhances -- it was a pleasant surprise, put it this way. It enhances the partnership.
Q. I guess this is for you, Mark. I'm just curious your ambitions for the Pinstripe Bowl, whether it's potentially becoming a playoff game and how this would enhance partnerships like the one we're here for today.
MARK HOLTZMAN: You obviously want to push everything forward. There's a lot of discussion as far as what's ultimately going to happen with the College Football Playoff system. Who knows where it will ultimately be? Obviously you're seeing some pretty seismic changes with the conferences and everything now becoming super conferences.
Who knows? You could see the day where maybe they expand the playoffs. I think four -- if they expand just to four, that's a little industrious, but if they expand to eight, especially with how the bandwidth is increasing of these conferences, you're probably going to want to see, I would think, an East Coast presence with the bowls.
I think clearly that's something we'd be interested in. We don't seat 75,000 people here, but I think the combination of what we do seat, and more importantly, what we bring to the party, the way we could promote it and the specialness.
I think what really got us on the map for the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl, what really got us on the map also, besides getting some of the quality institutions, was that Randy and Hal gave me really carte blanche to do the best of everything for the game. We're staying at top New York City hotels. We take the players to -- we go to Radio City. We go to Rockefeller Center. We go to the OWO [One World Observatory], all the top places in the city.
And the fans that come with the teams too, we take them to the skating rink, we take them to Tavern on the Green, we go to CBS and NBC morning shows. We've tried to really give everyone the best of New York City, and they let me do that. So everything has been first class and top shelf.
And every coach and school that's been here, they remark that. You don't cut any corners. You do everything first class. We give great gifts to everyone. I think they all appreciated that.
NICK CARPARELLI: I'd like to just expand on that a little bit. That's a great question. We often get asked the impact of the playoff on the rest of the bowl system. I mentioned earlier bowl games have been around for 100 years. They're going to be around for another 100 years. As college football fans, I'm a fan of the playoff. I think we need a mechanism to crown a National Champion.
But college football is unique. There's four teams in the playoff now. Maybe it goes to 8 or 12. It's never going to get much bigger than that. College football needs a more robust season. Let's face it, it's a very unequal playing field in college football. Even for a conference like the Big Ten, A.J. will tell you they're at the top of the heap. Maybe Ohio State, Michigan, a couple others are going to be competing for one of those playoff spots.
But the vast majority of college football programs, they can't aspire to be in the playoff on any kind of regular basis. College football needs a more robust postseason.
I used to work in a conference office. Commissioners work for their entire membership, not just the top couple of teams, and they all need meaningful postseason experiences. And the bowl season has been providing that for a long time and will continue to in the future.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you everyone. Appreciate everyone coming into town. It's very exciting for us. Thank everyone for joining us.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports