63: Snoop Dogg and The Arizona Bowl: What Restaurants Need todo to be "Bowl Ready"

This is how restaurants can prepare for the event of the year that has the 2nd largest impact on the city of Tucson.

Discover how the legendary Snoop Dogg's headline performance on December 28th is set to electrify the city's restaurant scene. As the only bowl that donates all proceeds to charity, the Arizona Bowl has contributed $5 million to over 70 local organizations, and Eric is here to unpack the ripple effect on local hotels, eateries, and the broader community. We also spill the beans on the best culinary hotspots for visiting fans looking to taste the essence of Tucson.

Chapters:
00:00:08 - Southern Arizona Bowl Impact on Restaurants

00:09:17 - Tucson Restaurant Promotion for National Event

00:22:31 - Restaurant Industry Excitement for Future Bowls

But that's not all—Tucson's unique festivities are drawing national attention, and we're here to celebrate! From the viral Taco Touchdown to the much-anticipated Taco Bell New Year's Eve Bowl Bash, there's no shortage of excitement. Eric and I chat about how the restaurant industry is gearing up for a stellar bowl season, with plans that make 2024 a standout year. With silent discos and family-friendly events on the horizon, you'll want to be part of this unforgettable experience. Tune in to hear how Tucson is transforming into a culinary and entertainment hub, ensuring a bowl season that leaves a lasting impression.

Resources
Snoop Dogg
Arizona Bowl
Gin & Juice
Martha Stewart
Dr. Dre
McDonald's
Hospitality Leader's Roadmap: Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary

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Grab your free copy of my audiobook, The Hospitality Leader's Roadmap: Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary at christinmarvin.com/audio

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Chapters

• 0:08 Southern Arizona Bowl Impact on Restaurants
• 9:17 Tucson Restaurant Promotion for National Event
• 22:31 Restaurant Industry Excitement for Future Bowls

Transcript

Christin Marvin: 0:08

listen up. Southern arizona snoop dog is coming to tucson for the arizona bowl on december 28th. We are going to talk today about who this is going to impact, what to expect and how restaurants can be bowl ready with some gin and juice and many, many other things. So please stick around and check out this episode so we can make sure that 2024 is the best bowl year that Southern Arizona has ever seen. Welcome to the no Hesitations podcast, the show where restaurant leaders learn tools, tactics and habits from the world's greatest operators.

Christin Marvin: 0:54

I'm your host, Christin Marvin, with Solutions by Christin. I've spent the last two decades in the restaurant industry and now partner with restaurant owners to develop their leaders and scale their businesses without wasting time and energy, so they can achieve work-life balance and make more money. You can now engage with me on the show and share topics you'd like to hear about, leadership, lessons you want to learn and any feedback that you have. Simply click the link at the top of the show notes and I'll give you a shout out on a future episode. Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to connecting Eric. Thank you so much for being here today. We have got a really big, extraordinary event coming to Tucson that you're going to give us some insight on, and we're going to talk specifically about the impact that this is going to have in the community of Tucson, but specifically to restaurants and how to get restaurants bowl ready. So we're super, super excited. So thanks for being here.

Eric Rhodes: 1:57

My absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me. Christin it's, you know food's a big part of football, so we're a family. Right it's? You know food's a big part of football, so we're a family right, I love it.

Christin Marvin: 2:04

Yes, yes, football and food have to go together all the time. So, december 28th, tell us what's going on, who's going to be here, what's happening in the community.

Eric Rhodes: 2:18

Yeah, well, we have this little football game we do, which is not so little, and we have this little guy named Snoop Dogg, who is also not so little. We're bringing a big show to Tucson. We're going into our 10th year of the Arizona Bowl here in Southern Arizona, super excited for that. But I mean, you cannot overstate what Snoop Dogg is in our country right now and we cannot overstate how excited we are to have him as our title sponsor right here in our community. He'll be here. In fact, a lot of our marketing you'll start to see here in the next week or two is Snoop Dogg will be here, will you? So having Snoop here is just super excited and elevates everything we do. Of course, the biggest headline for us is we're the only bowl game in the nation that gives 100% of our net proceeds to charity. So in our 10 years we've worked with over 70 charities here in Southern Arizona to the tune of about $5 million that we've given back here in our community.

Christin Marvin: 3:14

That's incredible. I did not know that. Yeah, I mean, snoop Dogg is just such a presence. I mean he's always been just incredible. But I think you know us seeing him show up during the Olympics and bring so much energy and love and passion to every single sport, you know and watch him just just build community. And you know, now we're watching my husband. I love the voice, so we're watching him on the voice and have just found like a new appreciation and love for him outside of the hip hop world. It's just been awesome. So I can't wait for him outside of the hip hop world. It's just been awesome. So I can't wait for him to bring that energy to the city. And he's not going to be alone, right, he's going to bring some friends.

Eric Rhodes: 3:53

You know, snoop never seems to be alone, right? I mean, it's one of my goals in life, kristen is to sometime have an entourage. Snoop absolutely has an entourage, soop absolutely has an entourage. So you'll certainly see a few special guests that are going to come with him. You know, being in such close proximity to Los Angeles, and a lot of these folks have we like to call them company cars they just fly, you know, they can make their way to Arizona super quickly and be back in Beverly Hills by dinner, the night of our bowl. So we're hopeful that not just Snoop but Snoop and friends will descend on Tucson, arizona, on December 28th.

Christin Marvin: 4:33

I love it. I'm kind of maybe hoping to catch some Dr Dre or some Martha Stewart around, but we'll see what happens.

Eric Rhodes: 4:39

Wink, wink, nod, nod. You may be able to see all of the above. That's our hope.

Christin Marvin: 4:43

I love it. So you had mentioned when we talked previously that this event has the second largest impact in Tucson. Would you talk about why that is and how far that reaches and what that all involves?

Eric Rhodes: 4:59

Absolutely. You know, as we've grown in the years and that is only I have to lead with this in thanks to our community and the support we get from our local restaurants, our local vendors, our local hotels, as we've grown and grown and grown, our partners have allowed us to grow and done amazing things for us, and what that's led to is we now sell out five to seven hotels during our bolt week here in Southern Arizona, which that week between Christmas and New Year's is a tough time usually for the hotel industry. So our hotel partners love us. But, as you know very well, with our hotels come some amazing restaurants on those properties and of course we're bringing the team, we're bringing the fans downtown. And then of course we're bringing the team, we're bringing the fans downtown. We have fan hotels and we have, you know, a restaurant guide that we encourage people go see these people.

Eric Rhodes: 5:52

So when you're in our game you can download an app that you'll be able to see. That here's all of our favorite restaurants and folks that are great with us. You know, of course we usually lead with Tyro because the Flores family has been with us since day one and they're amazing partners because the Flores family has been with us since day one and they're amazing partners. Many of the Tucson originals which is where you and I met are fantastic partners that we encourage people buy local, eat local. You know we're a city of gastronomy and so like there's a lot to our city that not just our football game we certainly want people at our football game but experience our town because that economic impact comes from people who are coming a couple of days before, staying a few days after, getting out in our community, spending some holiday dollars, putting on a little holiday weight, which is great for us, and so there's so much great food. We always tell people you can't throw a chimichanga without stopping somewhere great to eat.

Christin Marvin: 6:46

Totally, I love it. And the Charo family? I know they claim to have invented the chimichanga right. That's their story.

Eric Rhodes: 6:53

They do and I think they're right. I saw a national story a couple of weeks ago that came out and it was really funny because it said right now the debate is between El Charo and somebody named Monica, which they're all Florence, it's all the Florence family. That's amazing. And so Ray kind of posted a funny thing about it and we're like, yeah, I don't think there's much of a debate because that's all the same people.

Christin Marvin: 7:18

That's great. I heard some rumors but I didn't want anybody to fact check me.

Eric Rhodes: 7:21

So I love that.

Christin Marvin: 7:23

So is the? Is the impact just specific to downtown or does it kind of ripple through the rest of the community?

Eric Rhodes: 7:29

Yeah, we reach far and wide. You know we work with the Southern Arizona Attraction Alliance here and we give our guests, you know, one of the passport books. So we go to the Desert Museum, you know, go to the zoo, go to the Park Place Mall, you know, all these great places you can get discounts at through that Southern Arizona Passport. We have resorts as far north as La Paloma. We hit the west side with JW Marriott, we go more central to Doubletree over on Alvernon, so we like to say we're citywide and that really works out for us.

Christin Marvin: 8:03

I love it. So you had mentioned, you know, getting restaurants bowl ready for this. What does that mean? What does that look like? What do they need to know?

Eric Rhodes: 8:13

A hundred percent. Well, you know, one of our biggest presenting sponsors is Gin and Juice, you know, by Geraint Snoop, which is just fun to say all the time and it's a pretty good song. So we want to be bull ready, meaning that this restaurant is one of our partners. So, as you're here in Southern Arizona eating not just in Tucson, we go to Vail, we go down to Nogales, we have some places in Sonoyta, you know, down in Sierra Vista, that are you bull ready?

Eric Rhodes: 8:38

And if you see that sticker, you know the McDonald's franchises here in Tucson is a huge supporter of ours. You know the McDonald's franchises here in Tucson is a huge supporter of ours. So you'll see that sticker. That means that's someone that's supporting the bowl, that's somebody who's doing all they can to make sure that the bowl is successful in our community. So stop into those restaurants because you know we're a national brand which is trying to showcase local and that's sometimes a fine line to walk. So, as you're here in our community, as you have family coming in for the holidays, look out for that sticker and that means that someone who's not just serving Tucson from an amazing food standpoint but doing more in our community to support things that are giving back to our community.

Christin Marvin: 9:17

I love it, and what are some ways that you're recommending that restaurants get ready for this?

Eric Rhodes: 9:24

One. We want you to have gin and juice. We want you to showcase because the better we do for our national partners. For a while, when we made our announcement in May, tucson was one of the leading consumers of gin and juice in the country. Wow, which was awesome to say, because that shows our sponsors, we're all in when you sign a contract with a business in Tucson, not just us. Any of the great events we have going on here, from the Jazz Festival to the Book Festival, we want people to know when you sign a contract with Tucson, it's truly Tucson, it's truly Southern Arizona. So being able to say we were one of the leading consumers immediately after that announcement is awesome, because that shows on a national level, when you involve yourself in Southern Arizona, you are getting the support of Southern Arizona.

Eric Rhodes: 10:09

That's so cool Beyond that? Sorry to answer your question a little roundabout, I'm a marketing guy, I like to talk. Bull ready means that you know you're going to have some football games up, you're going to have some things and we want to have gin and juice. You may have an opportunity to get that restaurant's food at one of our other events our kickoff luncheon. We have the big Taco Bell New Year's Eve downtown bowl bash with a bunch of food trucks that will be there, tons of food trucks at our tailgate. The bowl bash and the tailgate are free. So even if you can't come to the game, you should come to the game. But even if you can't bring the family out, experience a little taste of Southern Arizona at our tailgate at the Bull Bash on New Year's Eve. Again, just different ways to involve our local restaurants and what we have on a national platform.

Christin Marvin: 11:00

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Speaker 3: 11:34

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Christin Marvin: 12:24

And we don't drop a ball at midnight in the city.

Eric Rhodes: 12:28

We do not. This is actually probably perfect for your show. We have Tucson's taco touchdown, so we drop a taco from a crane at midnight.

Christin Marvin: 12:38

That's really cool. It's enormous.

Eric Rhodes: 12:41

It is giant, it's amazing. Yeah, we have a well-known local artist who creates that for us and it's so cool looking. We you know our executive director, kim Adair, has a great story from last year. She was in one of our hotel partners, leo Kent, downtown here in the St Cruz, speaking of another restaurant that's a great supporter of ours and she was having dinner and she heard a couple at the table next to her just chatting about how they were visiting from Tampa, florida, just for the taco touchdown. Yes, they came to Tucson because they saw it on TikTok. We had about 10 million views on TikTok last year so it went a little TikTok famous. They came from Tampa to Tucson just to watch the taco touchdown.

Eric Rhodes: 13:24

You know it's a great night. We had warrant last year. We always have great music, great food, lots to do. If you've never done a silent disco before, it's by far and away one of those popular things to do there. It's amazing to watch people wear headphones, like you and I are wearing right now, with absolutely no music happening, and watching them just go to town dancing. It's a riot.

Christin Marvin: 13:44

We's so much fun to watch we used to have them when I managed Union Station in Denver and it was hysterical. We would just the staff and I from the restaurant would just go out and watch for a few minutes and giggle, and just watching people get so into it, you just wonder. You know we play a game Like what are they listening to? What song is in their ear right now? It's amazing.

Eric Rhodes: 14:02

So we have three live DJs and when I say live, they're actually there and they have a color behind each of their podiums. So you'll see three colors. I think last year it was red, green and blue. So if you're with the green DJ, I think he was playing like hip hop. Last year Blue was playing country and then red was playing just a mishmash of all the things like pointing, like I'm like you can still talk, you're like you're allowed to talk but people for some reason like think they can't talk. It is amazing to watch and it's really fun. I jumped in there with my family last year. My daughter was laughing at me hysterically, as she probably should when I'm dancing, but it's a great time. So we have lots going on there. You know, one of our restaurant partners, the Monica, hosts a VIP party just across the street there across Congress. So again, free to the family and it is family friendly. So get there early. We had to shut it down last year for bringing people in because it was just so packed.

Eric Rhodes: 15:04

So we're closing Congress this year, or part of Congress, not all of it for the street car, but a part of Congress to make sure we can handle as many people as possible down in the downtown area.

Christin Marvin: 15:14

I love it and hopefully the weather will just be absolutely amazing as fall and winter is here. Yeah.

Eric Rhodes: 15:20

You know, I mean a couple of years ago we had a light rain and it was actually one of those like amazing movie-like moments. The Plain White Tees were playing that year and you know it's everybody knows, hey there, delilah. And it was like the lightest sprinkle as they were playing it. It was very movie-like. So there's like hey there, delilah, and it's New Year's Eve and people are dancing and singing and it was. It was a lot of fun.

Christin Marvin: 15:42

So you know, Tucson.

Eric Rhodes: 15:43

I think I've learned is that we're an all weather kind of folks. We're used to the heat and they'll show up. But you know we have lots of winter visitors who what we think is freezing is nothing to them. You came from denver so like, yeah, our cold here in tucson. You probably laugh at us and that's okay, yeah I do, I do, it's okay.

Christin Marvin: 16:00

It's very soon, I won't be.

Eric Rhodes: 16:02

I'll transition out of that and be yeah, the blood thins out really quick yeah totally how this.

Christin Marvin: 16:09

This question just came to me. But how long have we been working on getting Snoop here and what does that take to make happen? Just extraordinary.

Eric Rhodes: 16:19

Yeah, so in our world, we usually sign three-year contracts with our sponsors and hope for five, but it's usually three. So with Snoop, we have a three plus two, so he's an option for five guaranteed three. So with Snoop, we have a three plus two, so he is an option for five guaranteed three. We were coming to the end of our three-year contract with Barstool Sports, who was a good partner of ours, but we both had known, and very amicably knew, that they weren't going to return, which was fine. They were great during our time.

Eric Rhodes: 16:44

So in 2023 early, we started quietly shopping, and Barstool gave us permission to do that because they were great partners that way, because they didn't have to let us do that, and they're like no, go ahead. Because they wanted us to be successful, which we were grateful for. So we quietly started shopping. We use an agency out of Denver, in fact, impression Sports, and they helped us out and they would start looking for us. So we had weekly meetings and during one of the meetings they said would you be interested in a celebrity sponsor? We met with somebody last week who might have an interest and we're like, well, yeah, who might that be? And so they mentioned Snoop Dogg to us and, of course, immediately we're like yes. Can I say yes faster, yes, please.

Christin Marvin: 17:31

Don't get our hopes up.

Eric Rhodes: 17:33

Don't get our hopes up, and that's a really hard part of the title sponsor process is you have folks who are interested and you're like, oh, that could be super cool, and you get a little interested and we create mock logos and that sort of thing. So you do. It's an emotional roller coaster, but we were probably on the phone with Snoop's team in 48 hours. Rollercoaster, but we were probably on the phone with Snoop's team in 48 hours and it didn't take much longer than a week for Kim Adair and there's a woman named Sarah Ramaker who runs their show and she's an incredible woman. I don't know if that woman ever sleeps because she is. You know, she's Snoop's essentially chief of staff and what that guy does is insane.

Eric Rhodes: 18:12

So we quietly had Sarah and team out at the game last year and so they were here to experience it all, see it in person. They walked around, they saw the tailgate, they saw the game experience and they had a great time and we were very fortunate that they liked it and so we were ready to go very early this year. But as always, there's some red tape and obviously legal to walk through. So when we were able to announce on May 6th, it was just a crowning moment and a very proud moment for us here at the Arizona Bowl having a fairly meteoric rise in 10 years of bowl game. Which seems like a long time 10 years but that's kind of babies in the bowl world. When you're talking about bowl games they've been 80, 80, a hundred years around. You know our friends to the North of Fiesta Bowl 50, 60 years. So to have that kind of rise and to bring on this title sponsor to our community here in Tucson could not be more excited.

Christin Marvin: 19:06

That's so great. I love that. Thank you for sharing that process. I think there's you see the marketing and the excitement of the day of, but we never really know what happens behind the scenes to to pull something off like this. It's just so cool.

Eric Rhodes: 19:17

Took almost a year yeah.

Christin Marvin: 19:19

Wow, that's amazing. Thank you for all your work on that. Where can restaurants find Jen and Juice?

Eric Rhodes: 19:26

Hopefully in their own restaurant. But yeah, if not. But certainly get in touch with us here at thearizontalballcom. You can reach out to me. Eric Rhodes and our distributors have been amazing and so they get it to you really quick. They want it everywhere. But if you're just looking to give it a sample to see if you want it in your restaurant, you can find it at pretty much any grocery store around town Some of your quick stops as well. So yeah, it's at any Safeway. Albertsons, fry's, all those great places have it and it's worth the try. And if not, stop by my office. I'll give you some.

Christin Marvin: 20:01

There you go. I love it. Are tickets still available and if so, how do people get ahold of?

Eric Rhodes: 20:05

them. Great question, kirsten. You're just setting me up. I love it. You're making me look good.

Eric Rhodes: 20:10

Tickets are available. We're ahead of sales at wherever we've ever been, which awesome we can only attribute to Mr D-O-double-G himself. So again, we're grateful for that. But, yeah, you can find them. It's a really easy process. We have an amazing national partner in SeatGeek who handles all of our ticketing platforms, but you can find us, the Arizona bowlcom, t H E, arizona bowlcom.

Eric Rhodes: 20:33

Uh, and if you miss the tickets, we're not doing our job on our website, but just right there at the top by tickets. Uh, they're available now. Uh, great seats, uh, but they're going fast, you know, which is a great thing for us to have. And, uh, you know, as we sit here recording this on November the 1st sorry if I give away the timing of it, but, as we said, I'm talking about November the 1st it's coming quick.

Eric Rhodes: 20:55

It's going to be a few days until Thanksgiving and a few days until we announce our teams on December the 8th and then, like a blink, our game day is going to be here. So this is one of the things you don't want to sit on. As you're sitting around and your family's driving you nuts on Thanksgiving you're like, oh my gosh, we got to get to do this at Christmas. Great thing to do to get them out of the house go to the Arizona bowl. We have some good times and, and you know, some open space where you can socially distance from your family if you need to go get lost at the concession stand.

Eric Rhodes: 21:24

Yeah, I'll be back in in five minutes to an hour.

Christin Marvin: 21:27

I love it. I love it Well, eric. Thank you so much for joining me, for letting restaurants know what's going to happen, how to prepare for all the work that you've done behind the scenes to make this happen and all the promotion that you're doing now. It's like getting him here is one part of it, right, and then it's we go execute.

Eric Rhodes: 21:47

We got to put on a show right. We've got Snoop here. We want to make sure he sees everything that Tucson is all about. So, as you're one of your many listeners, we'd love for you to be there and support us so we can just continue to bring bigger and better to our community.

Christin Marvin: 22:00

I love it. Is there anything else we didn't touch on today we need to let the listeners know about.

Eric Rhodes: 22:04

You know if you're missing anything. I know you have a great social media presence yourself, but you can find us at Arizona Bowl official on Instagram, at Arizona Bowl, at the Arizona Bowl on X I still call it Twitter because I'm old, of course. On Facebook, I have a great intern now to run my TikTok, because nobody needs to see me doing those dances. So all the things you can find us, you know and you can keep up with everything we're doing and all the places you need to be.

Christin Marvin: 22:31

Awesome, awesome, eric, thanks again for being here. Cannot wait for December 28th and for those of you listening, please share this episode with anyone you know in the restaurant industry who can benefit from this, and let's make 2025 just the most incredible bowl year. Or 2024, excuse me, I don't even know what you're in.

Eric Rhodes: 22:50

We can do 2025 too.

Christin Marvin: 22:51

Yeah, we'll're in, we'll start with 2024 and make it the best bowl year, and then we're just going to move on to 2025. So thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next week.

Eric Rhodes: 23:00

Thanks for having me.