One college football program could be employing one of the biggest faces in sports media.
Akron, which is running a sweepstakes that will allow one season ticket holder to help create first-series plays for the team’s home opener, announced 10 finalists for the job — and one of them happens to be Barstool Sports’ Dan “Big Cat” Katz.
The school, when releasing the details of the promotion earlier in August, said “season ticket holders are automatically entered into a random drawing for the promotion with every season ticket counting as an entry — e.g. 4 tickets equal 4 entries.”
So Big Cat, one of the co-hosts of the popular “Pardon My Take” podcast, previously said it would be “so fun” to be part of the contest, which would allow the winner to script the school’s opening drive against Robert Morris at InfoCision Stadium on Sept. 12.
Big Cat, when responding to a user on X on Wednesday who said some folks could think the promotion is rigged if he wins, divulged just how many tickets he purchased for his chance to run the offense for one drive.
“Yes. I don’t care. I ended up buying 18 season tickets,” he wrote. “I want to see shark wheel right in Robert Morris’s face.”
The Barstool personality added that he was donating his tickets to a nonprofit called “Tickets For Kids,” which states its mission is “to provide equitable access for our most vulnerable youth to experiences that inspire hope, dreams, and achievements for a lifetime.”
“I do want to get to a weekday game but all unused are going to them,” Katz said of his donation to the organization.”
Head coach Joe Moorehead is looking to turn his team around and get the program its first winning season since 2015. He has helped the team increase its win total each of the last three seasons, though the offense ranked eighth out of 13 teams in the MAC last year at 22.3 points per game.
“The selected fan will work directly with Zips’ football head coach Joe Moorehead to help design the plays that open the game — a first-of-its-kind experience for the Akron program,” the school said in a release.
The winner of the promo will be announced on Tuesday.
