Buffalo Wild Wings is America’s biggest and most famous sports bar. And there are two things that set the brand apart from its wing-selling competitors: our huge selection of sauces and our relevancy in sports.

But other brands were beginning to catch up, so we needed a game-changing way to talk about Buffalo Wild Wings’ famously long list of wing sauces ahead of football season. So when a player literally named Sauce Gardner was selected as the New York Jets’ number one pick in the NFL Draft, we knew we had to jump on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Even though he was a rookie who had never stepped foot on an NFL field, we wanted to bet big on Sauce. And sauce. So we made a deal. But it wasn’t just a one-and-done partnership. We created a season-long, sauce-fueled program that let Sauce Gardner spread his love for sauce to football fans and the media, and reminded them there’s only one place that knows everything is better with sauce — Buffalo Wild Wings.

Football fans are flooded with media stories leading up to and during the season. They’re completely dialed in for the commentary, the hope of a good record for their team, the competitive advantage for their fantasy draft, and more. We knew Sauce Gardner would be getting attention in the feeds as the most watched rookie coming into the league. It was clear he was Buffalo Wild Wings’ ticket to getting our own attention for that other kind of sauce, the one Buffalo Wild Wings does best, and the one we know fans crave with their wings during football season. Our message was simple — everything is better with Sauce. Sauce the man, and sauce the stuff that makes Buffalo Wild Wings the best wings to order for football, spicing up news sites, sports podcasts, live broadcasts and social feeds all season long.

This wasn't just a one-off partnership. It was a season-long program that brought our talent and brand together around one simple message: football season is better with sauce. We started by announcing the partnership with Sauce and releasing a social campaign where he shares his love for all of our sauces. But we were just getting started.

Next, we announced the release of Sauce’s new national sauce flavor (called Sauce Sauce, of course). We then created an autograph-signing event for fans where Sauce used the world’s first pen that can literally sign in sauce. We continued by auctioning off a Sauce Gardner trading card that was authenticated by Sauce, using sauce. And then even got famous shoe customizer Mache to design custom football cleats for Sauce using paint made out of sauce.

Each individual activation kept fans engaged and the campaign momentum going months after it was first announced.

Our big bet on Sauce paid off, as Sauce Gardner rose from a rookie to one of the best players in the NFL, and Buffalo Wild Wings got to ride the Sauce train all season long.

We combined the relevance of sauce to our audience with the relevance of Sauce in football, and fans took notice. The program totaled over 1.8 billion impressions, and drove impact and engagement for the entire football season, not just at launch. In fact, we received earned media in seven consecutive months following the initial launch.

And on the business side, we sold over 400,000 orders of Sauce Sauce, and our focus on sauce all football season long helped lead to our most successful Super Bowl sales day in Buffalo Wild Wings history.