Buffalo Wild Wings kicked off the college football season by hosting a head-to-head competition between sports bars in Columbus, OH and Minneapolis, MN.
As the teams from OSU and UM took the field last Thursday for the first primetime game of the season, fans at the Buffalo Wild Wings sports bars nearest to their school’s football stadium were steeped in a competition of their own, as they battled against one another in various challenges.
The competition was scored based on the following categories, with three points up for grabs during each quarter:
- Great Times: Watson Speech to Text and Watson Tone Analyzer captured noise levels, tone and keywords from microphones at each sports bar. The data was then transferred to the IBM Cloud where a machine learning model calculated sentiment scores. Cheers and roars led to a higher output, while groans and muted noise resulted in a lower score. This marked the first-ever application of IBM Watson in a head-to-head competition between two different sites.
- Wings Eaten: The more wings that fans crushed, the more points they scored for their sports bar.
- Blazin’ Challenges Completed: Fans that took down 10 bone-in Blazin’ Carolina Reaper wings in five minutes or less netted points for their sports bar.
Points were recorded in real time and displayed on a live scoreboard at each sports bar.
Hype hosts kept fans engaged throughout the competition, as professional football player and Too Hot To Handle star Chase DeMoor emceed at the Minneapolis sports bar and former college football player and YouTuber Deestroying appeared at the Columbus location.
The score was tied at halftime but the Columbus sports bar emerged victorious in the end, winning by a score of 7 to 5. In the spirit of friendly competition, Buffalo Wild Wings will make a donation to the Buffalo Wild Wings Foundation to support local youth in Columbus and Minneapolis through partners like Boys & Girls Clubs.
As the health and safety of our guests and team members remains our top priority, we carefully followed the guidance of local, state, and federal public health officials after assessing the latest developments related to COVID-19.
