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At Akron’s football home opener against Robert Morris, one Zips season-ticket holder will get to draw up the team’s opening drive. That’s due to an unconventional promotion by the school: Purchase season tickets to enter a random drawing to script the first offensive play on Sept. 12.
The stunt has gone viral, with the initial X/Twitter post of the Zips’ offer garnering more than 16 million views in the first 24 hours. But beyond its social media splash, the promotion has become a major ticket-sale success story for Akron football.
Since the announcement on Aug. 4, the school has sold out suite inventory for the first time in program history, and surged past annual ticket sales goals with weeks to go before kickoff, according to Akron’s senior deputy AD and COO Matt Pottorff.
“We’ve had an awesome, awesome 24 hours, but we’re just getting started,” he told Front Office Sports. “It’s going to be like a tsunami.”
The promotion was the brainchild of Pottorff and Akron AD Dr. Andrew T. Goodrich, who thought it up “at 10 p.m. and 30,000 feet in the air” while on a flight home from the school’s appearance in the 2026 men’s NCAA basketball tournament. (No. 12 Akron lost in the first round to 5-seed Texas Tech.)
“We were just going through the craziest ideas we could think of to sell football tickets,” Pottorff said. “This was the one where we thought, ‘If we do this right, it could really move the needle and be a huge hit.’”
The announcement, which also elicited nearly 2,000 quote-tweets, was the most-viewed X post by any college football team this summer, according to digital analytics firm Zoomph. It also immediately caught the attention of popular sports personalities.
Barstool Sports’s Dan “Big Cat” Katz told FOS in an email that he purchased eight Zips season tickets for $600. Radio host Bobby Bones and basketball analyst Dan Dakich have bought in as well, according to the school.
Katz said he hopes to actually attend at least one game if his schedule permits, adding that there is “nothing better than weekday MACtion at the end of the season.” (Asked whether he’d reveal his offensive strategy if chosen, Katz declined. “No chance I give you the secrets to my playbook,” he said. “Nice try.”)
Akron has leaned into the high-roller attention, sharing notable season-ticket purchasers across its football social media channels to attract even more eyeballs—and potential buyers. Athletic department leaders are scheduled to appear on The Pat McAfee Show and ESPN Radio on Thursday as momentum builds.
Pottorff emphasized to FOS that the winner will be selected at random despite the slew of well-known contestants, but entries are weighted by the number of season tickets purchased. This means, he said, “if somebody wants to buy 10,000 season tickets, they’ve got an incredibly good chance of winning.” Akron’s InfoCision Stadium seats 30,000.
General admission packages start at $75, while premium inventory goes for as high as $15,000 for (the now sold-out) suites. Club and loge level seats are “almost gone” as of Wednesday night, too.
A winner will be chosen on Aug. 19. Whoever it ends up being will enjoy lots of perks beyond playcalling.
“First, we’re going to call that person NFL Draft–style and let them know that they got selected. Then we’ll find a time for them to come to campus, where they’ll meet with [head football] coach Joe Moorhead,” Pottorff said. “He’ll run them through what plays we would normally call in the opening drive, and then figure out what they want to do with it.”
On game day, the winner will also take part in a press conference, get mic’d up with a headset, have play sheets, and land in the coaches box. After their moment on the call, Pottorff said they’ll be escorted up to a suite with their guests for the second half to “really soak in the experience.”
The program knows some people will buy a season ticket only to enter and ultimately resell them, which they’re O.K. with. Pottorff says the Zips will “work through that process” and ensure all tickets “go to good use.”
Katz, meanwhile, is genuinely looking forward—and hopes to win. “It’s great for College Football,” the host of Pardon My Take said, “and who knows, Akron might accidentally find the next great offensive mind (hopefully me).”
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