Uni Watch vs. Chick-fil-A

Every year Uni Watch blog creator Paul Lukas takes a dig at the Chick-fil-A Bowl, refusing to call it by its given name. Most of us uniwatchers are dismayed with the corporate logo-creep that mars today’s uniforms, which are filled with enough patches and logos as it is. I’m right there with them.

But why pick on Chick-fil-A?

One of Paul’s reasons is that a “fast food chain” sponsors the bowl. Is that worse that a car-repair place, or an unknown Birmingham financial company? A company that sells nuts? Other bowls are sponsored by a Korean car maker, two sporting goods companies, a chain of sports bars, GoDaddy.com, a car-rental company, the San Diego Credit Union, or Little Caesar’s Pizza…you get the drift.

While all bowl-sponsor corporations are “douchebags” (as Paul calls them), the worst offenders are those who drop the traditional bowl name. The likes of Paul despise this, since they can no longer simply drop the corporate name and call it “The Gator Bowl.” That’s exactly WHY the corporations do this, so all the money spent sponsoring the bowl won’t go to waste. That’s why CFA had the “Peach” dropped. Not traditional or fun, but can you blame them?

(What’s funny is that Paul writes for ESPN, the very corporation that encourages these corporations to pay out all the money in the first place. So he’s one of the bad guys!)

While there are a few similar bowls (like the Meinike Car Care Bowl), CFA takes the brunt of Paul’s punishment because they were one of the first. They’re also the biggest, most well-attended non-BCS bowl, hosting some of the best non-BCS teams. The bowl patch both teams wear is often large.

So last Friday Paul dissed CFA again. Every year several readers defend CFA, though Paul is not moved. I took the first shot, and Paul was quick to fire back. As the blog’s comments monitor he occasionally asks readers to tone down volatile responses, but Paul made it clear that he was right, and I wrong. Others posted opinions for both sides, though none as strongly as Paul.

Uni-Sage Ricko straddled the fence, offering history and precedent. He surely didn’t want to offend Paul, but he did a fine job of honoring my opinion as well. Though I rarely participate in the daily exchange of blog comments due to my limited time, Ricko knows I’m similar to him…an older uni-enthusiast, with many memories from the 60’s and 70’s.

Later some CFA comments prompted me to explain myself more. I also commented on another subject: why footballs no longer have stripes all the way around. I didn’t think much of my post, except hope it sounded smart and snappy. I ended this post amazed that Ricko hadn’t already posted this. As usual, he replied with the story BEHIND my story!

Earlier Paul had announced he was taking the weekend off, and his able weekend assistant would take over. The weekend guy usually ends his posts with a notable reader comment from the previous day.

Sunday the notable reader comment posted on the blog was my snappy stripe comment! Perhaps it was the weekend guy’s way of apologizing to me. Perhaps he didn’t make the connection. I’m sure Paul was thrilled!

(Uni Watch is a web site I read every day, with daily coverage of uniform news).