How Chick-fil-A, Philadelphia 76ers And Fans Hit It Big With Chicken Nuggets Promotion

The Philadelphia 76ers’ fans were already in a good mood on Sunday. Their team led the Boston Celtics by 13 points when 76ers forward Georges Niang fouled Robert Williams, sending him to the line with 4:03 remaining in the third quarter.

After Williams missed the first shot, the Wells Fargo Center crowd got even more boisterous. On the scoreboard, there were prompts of “Get Loud,” “Louder” and “Next Miss Is For 5 Nuggets,” a reminder of a popular Chick-fil-A promotion. When Williams made the second free throw, a disappointing “Ah” emanated throughout the arena.

There was a similar reaction twice more in the game, as Celtics star Jayson Tatum missed his first free throws with 8:57 remaining in the game and with 3:21 left. Both times, Tatum made the second shot, denying fans their free chicken nuggets.

By the end of the night, they were celebrating again. The 76ers won, 116-115, in overtime to even the Eastern Conference semifinals series at two games apiece and guarantee at least one more home game this season. With that, comes another chance for free food.

Since Chick-fil-A introduced the “Bricken for Chicken” campaign at the start of the season, it has been a hit for all parties involved: the local restaurant franchise owners for marketing exposure and increase in traffic at their stores, the 76ers for the sponsorship revenue and guest experience and the fans themselves for the complimentary nuggets.

The details? At any home 76ers’ game, if an opposing player misses two consecutive free throws in the second half, fans receive five chicken nuggets. If it occurs again, fans receive eight nuggets. And if it happens three times in a game, fans receive 12 nuggets.

This season, the promotion has been triggered at 10 games, resulting in area restaurants distributing more than 600,000 free nuggets. Owen Morin, the 76ers’ senior vice president of corporate partnerships, said that “is just a phenomenal number” and added “that success is much better than we initially expected.” The goal now is to distribute more than a million nuggets in a season.

It is not just limited to people who attend the game. If the opposing player misses the two free throws, anyone within the Philadelphia region can open their Chick-fil-A app and claim the offer by 10:30 a.m. the next business day. They then have three days to redeem the offer at any restaurant.

“It’s been an unbelievable promotion,” said Sam Class, who owns and operates two Chick-fil-A stores in suburban Philadelphia.

Class, who leads Chick-fil-A’s sports partnerships committee in the region, has known the 76ers’ brass for years as Chick-fil-A is a longtime advertiser at games. Still, Class looked with envy at the Wendy’s promotion that began in the 2017-18 season in which fans would get a free small Frosty drink if an opposing player missed two free throws in the second half of any 76ers’ home game.

When the Wendy’s deal expired before this season, Class reiterated to the 76ers that Chick-fil-A would gladly step in. During the 2022 NFL season, Wendy’s sponsored a promotion at Philadelphia Eagles’ games where fans won a free small Frosty if the Eagles prevented an opponent from scoring a touchdown in the first quarter.

“We had always told the Sixers that if there was ever a chance, we wanted to jump on it,” Class said. “We felt that our brand with the Sixers could really multiply the effect of this promotion.”

After the sides agreed on the contract, the 76ers’ marketing staff came up with the “Bricken for Chicken” moniker.

“We spent a lot of time internally thinking through names,” Morin said. “It’s our fans that ultimately bring this to life, but I think some of the magic is the name.”

The campaign got off to an enviable start. During Philadelphia’s first home game on Oct. 20, Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo missed two free throws with 2:07 remaining, providing Philadelphia fans with free nuggets.

“This is sort of the dream scenario for us,” Morin said. “It’s always nice when it happens right away.”

Said Class: “That really sparked the promotion from day one. That right there was just, ‘Wow, what just happened?’”

The next month, Antetokounmpo missed two consecutive free throws three times in the second half of a game in Philadelphia. And Brooklyn Nets guard Ben Simmons, a former 76ers’ player who’s unpopular in the area, missed two consecutive second half free throws in his first game at the Wells Fargo Center since the franchise traded him last February. Those moments went viral online and brought attention to the promotion.

“It just took off from there,” Class said. “Even Chick-fil-A corporate was coming to us and saying, ‘What are you guys doing? This is amazing.’ They were just blown away by the amount of impressions that we were getting and earned media on this. It was just off the charts.”

Other NBA franchises such as the Atlanta Hawks, Los Angeles Clippers, Orlando Magic and Washington Wizards have had similar Chick-fil-A promotions, as have several colleges, including Fordham and Maryland.

For the 76ers’ promotion, the owners and operators at the 76 Chick-fil-A restaurants in the region spanning Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey work together to offset the costs of giving away the free nuggets. They are each required to place money in what Class calls a “marketing accrual,” which is a centralized account that is used to pay for marketing activities throughout the area. That way, the costs are spread among all restaurants rather than just the busiest ones.

“It’s not a direct hit to the restaurant,” Class said. “That’s how we’ve made it more advantageous for the owner-operators to say, ‘I want to participate in this.’ There’s the labor (costs) to make all of this and to execute, but as far as the cost of the item that we’re giving away, it is paid out of this bucket of money.”

In 2019, the area restaurants had similar promotions where they gave away free chicken sandwiches anytime a Philadelphia Phillies’ pitcher recorded a save at a home game and whenever the Philadelphia Union scored three or more goals in a home Major League Soccer game.

Back then, fans rushed to redeem the offer because it was only available the next business day.

“It was incredibly challenging for restaurants, and particularly restaurants closer to the city, to handle that,” Class said. “You were giving away literally thousands of sandwiches in a day….We saw this massive influx of people. It was unmanageable, to be honest with you.”

After signing the deal with the 76ers last year, Class decided to lengthen the amount of time people could redeem the offer to three days. That way, the restaurants wouldn’t be as overwhelmed, and it’s worked.

“Those learnings from 2019 prior to Covid helped us figure out how could we do this that’s sustainable for restaurants to manage,” Class said. “It’s not this pressure on restaurants.”

The owners have seen financial benefits, too, according to Class, primarily with people buying additional items besides just the free nuggets and using the app and coming into restaurants more often than they had before redeeming the offer. Before the pandemic, about 5% of customers at the Philadelphia-area restaurants used the app. Today, Class said 35% to 38% use the app, which helps create loyal customers and added revenue.

“It’s a win-win for us in the sense of yes, we’re giving away a lot of free nuggets,” Class said. “That’s a good thing for the guests and the Sixers fans. But the reality is it’s good thing for us as a business, too, because it’s getting folks onto this digital platform, our app. And once they get in there, then each individual restaurant can leverage that for marketing purposes, which is great.”