Mini-ball mania: Pizza Hut returns to NCAA

One of the most successful March Madness promotions in the NCAA’s commercial history could be coming back.

Pizza Hut has agreed to a new multiyear NCAA corporate partnership, and part of the plan is to bring back the March Madness-themed mini-basketballs that made their debut in 1987. At a time when the corporate partner program was just starting, Pizza Hut, which was a Pepsi brand back then, was one of the first corporate partners to create a full-fledged marketing program tied to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and Final Four.

Pizza Hut officials last week said they weren’t ready to comment on the new deal with the NCAA, which was sold by joint rights holders Turner Sports and CBS. But the pizza restaurant chain has committed to at least one major national promotion during each year of the agreement, and the mini-basketballs are expected to be central to the new activation plan for the Yum Brands company.

David Daniels, Pizza Hut’s head of media and brand partnerships, spearheaded the NCAA deal with Turner and CBS.

The Pizza Hut deal represents another big win for the NCAA’s corporate partner and champion program, which now stands at 18 companies. Since Turner and CBS broke up restaurants into three categories, they’ve had success selling across all of them.

Pizza Hut will fill the pizza category, while Buffalo Wild Wings came in as the NCAA’s official sit-down restaurant in 2013, and recently extended its deal through the 2019 Final Four.

That leaves fast food as the only dining category available, and sources say Turner and CBS are closing in on a deal to fill that space. Burger King previously was the official NCAA quick-service restaurant, but it unexpectedly exited earlier this year.

Pizza Hut, meanwhile, is still working on details of its activation after completing its contract to rejoin the NCAA’s corporate partner program last week.

One of the full-sized basketballs from the original Pizza Hut program, from 1991

“Pizza Hut is an iconic American brand and will deliver the excitement of all 90 NCAA Championships to college sports fans via epic national promotions across their stores, television, digital and social media,” Turner’s Will Funk, executive vice president of sales and property partnerships, wrote in an email.

NCAA partner deals typically sell in the low eight figures, depending on how much media is built in.

The NCAA had never taken on sponsors before 1985 when Jim Host of Host Communications pitched NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers on the idea of a corporate partner program. Byers rejected the idea immediately, famously saying, “Over my dead body.” But Host continued to wield his influence to gain Byers’ approval and in 1985 sold the NCAA’s first sponsorship to Gillette for $500,000.

Valvoline and Pepsi bought NCAA deals through Host Communications a year later. It was through Pepsi that Pizza Hut gained NCAA marketing rights and launched a program that sold an NCAA mini-basketball for $2.99 every time a consumer bought a pizza for $10 or more. The balls carried branding for the NCAA and Pizza Hut, as well as the Final Four logo.

In the first year of the promotion, Pizza Hut sold all of the 2 million basketballs it ordered in 10 days. It paid Rawlings, an NCAA licensee, $2.19 for each of the basketballs, Host recalled. The next year, Pizza Hut ordered 4 million balls and sold them out.

David Novak, who retired last year after a lengthy run as chairman and CEO at Yum Brands, led Pizza Hut’s marketing some 29 years ago when the mini-ball program launched. He worked with Host and Marc Kidd from Host Communications on the planning.

“It was one of the first marketing programs that showed how we could help build the brand of the Final Four,” Host said. “They were scared to death that they wouldn’t be able to sell the balls. They ran out in 10 days.”

In subsequent years, Pizza Hut shifted to a regulation-size basketball and the program ran out of steam because the balls didn’t fit a child’s hand as well as the mini-basketballs, Host said.