'We have not shown our full hands yet': Inside the Pop-Tart Bowl's wild ideas

At approximately 7 p.m. ET on Saturday, the eyes of college football will be focused on a pastry.

Last year, the inaugural Pop-Tarts Bowl (formerly the Cheez-It Bowl, the Camping World Bowl, and so on) made waves — but not for its on-field action. It was the postgame ceremonies that drew everyone’s attention.

After the Kansas State Wildcats were crowned the bowl’s victors, the usual postgame traditions ensued. Wildcats coach Chris Klieman received a Gatorade bath. Players headed to midfield, where they donned Pop-Tarts Bowl champions T-shirts. Quarterback Avery Johnson was named the game’s Most Valuable Player. A trophy was hoisted.

Then an oversized frosted strawberry Pop-Tart then climbed atop an oversized toaster and descended to its toasted doom. Seconds later, sure enough, an edible, oversized Pop-Tart emerged from the toaster’s bottom slot. Johnson and Klieman enjoyed bites. Satisfied with what they saw, the bowl’s planners went to work on making the next year’s edition even more over-the-top.

Sounds outlandish? There’s video proof to match the tale.

In a world where college football’s bowls constantly jostle for attention in an ever-changing sport, outlandishness works.

When the Pop-Tarts Bowl started charting a course for its first game under the new title sponsor, a willingness to break the mold and push boundaries quickly emerged. The goal would be to find ways to be unconventional while still honoring some of college football’s classic rituals.

“When we stepped into last year, the strategy was really ‘How do we tackle traditional college football rituals and turn them on their heads?'” Pop-Tarts senior director of brand marketing Heidi Ray told ESPN. “It’s true to the DNA of the [Pop-Tarts] brand that we bust convention.”

The game’s now-famous Pop-Tart mascot is perhaps the best example of mixing something that could be distinct to the bowl with classic college football tradition. Scores of universities have beloved mascots to help pump fans up on game day — why not give the game a mascot as well? Though a far cry from some of college football’s more intimidating costumes, the frosted strawberry Pop-Tart proved a hit, its popularity exceeding what the game’s organizers had even imagined.

“We were excited about [the mascot],” Ray said. “We didn’t anticipate that the world would lose its mind the way it did when it was introduced and then ultimately when it was sacrificed.”

Not content to just enjoy the success of last season’s mascot, Pop-Tarts looked to build on what had already worked heading into 2024. Frosted strawberry (and its subsequent cinematic toasting) was a smash hit. Ray and the bowl’s response?

“Let’s triple the fun and bring three.”

Enter this year’s trio of mascots, with the game’s MVP earning the honor of selecting which of the three flavors will be the one to be toasted.

The same logic of building upon prior successes applies to the game’s new trophy, which now doubles as a functional toaster. The inaugural Pop-Tarts Bowl trophy had a sleek silver football design, complete with two slots at the top to hold a pair of Pop-Tarts the way a toaster would. It invited a natural question, however: Could it actually toast the pastries?

That version of the trophy could not. But when meetings for the next game began, the question of how to make the trophy function was immediately raised.

“We were really excited and proud for people to see [the trophy] … but the immediate second question everybody had was ‘Is it a real toaster?'” Florida Citrus Sports chief marketing officer Matt Repchak told ESPN. “So when we started the planning for 2024, one of the first things that we said in the brainstorm meeting was ‘I think we all agree this needs to be a functional toaster.’

“There’s a giggle when you tell somebody that you’re trying to put a toaster inside a football on top of a trophy. But then it very quickly was like ‘OK, this is semi-serious, let’s do this thing.'”

Social media strategy has also proved to be pivotal in the Pop-Tarts Bowl’s continued establishment in the postseason scene. Going hand in hand with the game’s assorted distinctive features is a willingness to relentlessly promote those features in unique ways.

Soon after the game’s functional toaster trophy was unveiled, the bowl’s X account was ready to showcase the unlikely hardware, posting a parody trailer of Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” complete with the tagline of #Poppenheimer.

“Now I am become Trophy, toaster of pastries.” #Poppenheimer #PopTartsBowl pic.twitter.com/oq4pbQfqGN

— Pop-Tarts Bowl (@PopTartsBowl) December 16, 2024

“We had good audio clips, good references … things that feel tied into what’s in pop culture,” Repchak said. “You approach your social media strategy [like] this is another platform for people to engage with the game.

“Last year a lot of people found out Pop-Tarts was sponsoring a game when they saw that trophy for the first time … even more people found out that Pop-Tarts was involved with college football when they could not avoid the memes on Instagram the day of the game and the day after the game.”

Needless to say, college football fans online have taken to what the Pop-Tarts Bowl is offering. The bowl game currently has 37.8K followers on X — and counting — and has the second-highest follower count of any non-New Year’s Six Bowl game, surpassed only by the pioneer of the mayo bath, the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. In fact, the Mayo Bowl, the Pop-Tarts Bowl and the Citrus Bowl — also operated by FCS Sports — are the only non-NY6 games to boast over 30,000 followers on X.

Regardless of the result on Saturday or the bowl’s follower count, anything feels possible for the Pop-Tarts Bowl going forward. Whether it’s further expansion of mascot ranks, new trophy functions or some other unseen innovation, it’s hard to rule anything out once bowl season next December rolls around. Just take it from Repchak.

“We have not shown our full hands yet.”