Snoop Dogg Brings the ‘Juice’
Sponsorship Puts Arizona Bowl on Global Stage
By Steve Rivera
In the eyes of Kym Adair’s teenage daughter, mom has been just “kinda cool” all these years. Then, she started rubbing elbows with Snoop Dogg, the world-famous rap artist and media personality who has signed on as the primary sponsor of the Arizona Bowl.
“She’s 18 and now thinks I’m super cool because I’m having conversations with Snoop Dogg,” said Adair, the bowl’s executive director. “She can’t believe it.”
The Arizona Bowl, with Adair and her local staff, has caught lightning – er, gin and juice – in a bottle, er can, for 2024 with the game now called the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl presented by Gin & Juice by Dre & Snoop.
As Snoop said, “I’m bringing the juice” to college football.
It’s the first bowl game to have an alcohol brand as a presenting sponsor and it comes with the added visibility of one of pop culture’s biggest stars.
The Arizona Bowl, Tucson and all involved have become super cool now that ubiquitous D-O-Double-G has come on to help promote his brand and the game.
As he said when he announced the game, “I’m taking my talents to Arizona – believe me, Arizona baby. I’ll be there, will you be there?”
The game also comes just a few months after his gold-medal gig at the Paris Olympic Games where NBC paid him for various appearances at Olympic venues.
He’ll bring his unique style, given he’ll be in the booth to help with color commentary. He was a hit at the 2024 Olympic Games and will likely be the same in Tucson this December.
“It’s been an unexpected but welcome boost to our brand by proxy of the fact that the next sporting event that America will be able to get their fix of Snoop on the mic and with the people, will be right here in Tucson during Bowl Week 2024,” said Eric Rhodes, Arizona Bowl’s VP of communications.
Arizona Bowl officials are hopeful he’ll attract a curious audience given Snoop Dogg’s ability to transcend the game and the generations of fans.
Since announcing the event in early summer, there’s been nothing but positive vibes for the game, which will be played Dec. 28 at 2:30 p.m. at Arizona Stadium. The game pits teams from the Mountain West Conference and the Mid-American Conference.
When the deal was announced in early May, there were more than 4,500 mentions and a reach of more than 2 billion, locally, nationally and in Canada about the game.
“When you are working with a partner who has more than 80 million Instagram followers it’s pretty fantastic,” Adair said. “The news has been all over the world.”
Rhodes said the initial coverage has led to unparalleled social media attention.
“Those numbers don’t include his X, Facebook and other social media platforms,” Rhodes said. “The image of Snoop Dogg putting on a bucket hat with our Arizona Bowl logo, and mentioning Tucson specifically, placed our name and our game in front of over 100 million social media followers in one post.”
As for the love in Canada, well, Rhodes had no explanation only to say, “We will absolutely take our brand becoming international.”
From the likes of ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith to other national media figures to EA Sports having an Arizona Bowl simulation on its college football video game platform, the excitement has been tremendous.
“It’s amazing to see how far-reaching this partnership has been,” Adair said. “Everyone is really excited about the partnership. It’s been awesome to see how far the message about the game has gone in a short period of time.”
It’s opened sponsorship opportunities with national companies curious about joining in on the fun. Plenty is planned, including a youth all-star game, something with which Snoop has a tremendous background given he’s had a youth league in California.
And for the first time in any bowl game, participating players will be getting NIL − name, image and likeness − deals, meaning they will get paid to do public service while in Tucson.
“Snoop really wants the game to be the first for that,” Adair said. “There will also be a few more activities that will be announced (soon) because of it. It’s been exciting all around.”
Local officials appreciate the special name recognition for the city.
“With its beautiful surroundings, Tucson is the perfect place to host the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl,” said Tucson Mayor Regina Romero. “College athletics brings us together and are such an important part of our identity as Tucsonans.
“I am looking forward to welcoming our guests from across the country who are excited to experience a college bowl atmosphere and all the natural beauty, history, arts, culture and food that Tucson has to offer.”
Felipe Garcia, president and CEO of Visit Tucson, agreed.
“We are excited to see the Snoop Dogg affiliation with the Arizona Bowl,” Garcia said. “For us, the bowl has been a great way to bring visitors to Tucson, during a time that historically has been ‘soft.’ We hope that the excitement we see outside of Tucson is also reflected in our community, since the bowl supports many nonprofits in our community.”
One of the bowl founders, Mark Irvin, was thrilled about the sponsorship. “Snoop is a well-known and universally loved musician and businessman who loves football, charitable giving and creative thinking. Those attributes align perfectly with who we are as a bowl, making Snoop an ideal collaborator. I can’t wait to see the energy he brings to the bowl this year. Hats off to Kym Adair, our executive director, for being the brain trust on this. She continues to amaze me.”
Adair just celebrated her sixth year as the bowl game’s executive director, seeing it go from the Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl to the Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl and to what it is today – a much-talked-about event where national media has taken interest.
“It has definitely pushed us into the forefront of the bowl game conversations,” she said. “I think bringing this creative, exciting, new approach to a bowl game has definitely quelled some of that because this is something people are really excited about. People are talking about the bowl game, and it’s definitely pushed us farther into conversations of bowl games.”
How did it all happen? In March 2021, the Arizona Bowl formed its partnership with Playfly Premier Partnerships, a division of Playfly Sports, and after the conclusion of the Barstool sponsorship, the Snoop Dogg possibility was mentioned.
“I said, ‘Put me on the phone with Snoop – this would be incredible,’ ” Adair said, when she first heard of the possibility. “A terrific opportunity because I thought we were already doing things that would align with him as it relates to football, the charitable giving we do … we felt it would resonate in an authentic way.”
Pictured above – Kym Adair, Executive Director Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl presented by Gin & Juice by Dre & Snoop