North American travel centre operator Pilot Flying J has agreed a deal to become title sponsor of next year’s Battle at Bristol college American football game between the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Tennessee Volunteers – an event that is expected to set a new attendance record.
The Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee will host the game, on September 10, after the facility’s staging of the Night Race on the Nascar stock car racing calendar. The game will take on the official title of Pilot Flying J Battle at Bristol.
The speedway venue hosts numerous Nascar Sprint Cup races during the season. As part of Pilot Flying J’s agreement, it will be given the opportunity to engage with fans trackside at the stock-car racing series’ events throughout 2016. The company will also have a trackside presence at the Battle at Bristol game itself.
In addition, Pilot Flying J’s network of travel centres will offer in-store promotions to customers in the lead-up to the event.
Around 150,000 people are expected to attend the game, which would surpass the current college football attendance record of 115,109.
“One of the reasons we really liked this partnership was knowing this would be the largest football game ever played,” Whitney Johnson, Pilot Flying J’s director of brand and customer experience, told the Forbes website.
“We felt like it would be a year-long event we could capitalise on. We’ll leverage both the (Sprint Cup Series) races at Bristol next year, and we’ll do activations on campus at Tennessee and Virginia Tech.”