Rabid college football fans living it up on billboard
The stunt will promote ESPN’s telecast of the national championship game at Levi’s Stadium
From the outside looking up, it may seem as though the four people living atop a billboard in downtown San Jose are taking the tiny home craze to the extreme.
But a closer look reveals they’re just zealous college football fans getting fired up for the national championship at nearby Levi’s Stadium.
The four superfans temporarily residing on an ESPN billboard at the intersection of Almaden Boulevard and Park Avenue represent each of the College Football Playoff teams and are participating in the network’s advertising campaign promoting the Jan. 7 title game.
Chosen fans of Alabama, Oklahoma, Clemson and Notre Dame climbed 45 feet to the billboard Thursday morning, where they’ll live while competing in challenges as long as their respective team stays alive in the playoff.
That means the two fans of the teams making it to the national championship in Santa Clara will spend the next 12 days on the 40- foot- wide, 8-foot-deep platform. Each fan has a tent and sleeping bag. They’ll also have a large-screen TV (tuned to ESPN, no doubt)
to help pass the time in between the trash-talking.
For those wondering, a bathroom and shower are available for the contestants’ use. ESPN3 will be live-streaming all the nonbathroom and shower action up on the billboard.
How did these lucky fans score this coup? They were each chosen by ESPN from the nearly 700 who submitted video testimonials explaining why they deserved to be here.
The four are Alabama fan Llyas Ross Sr. from Tuscaloosa, Ala, a threetour Army veteran; Notre Dame fan Jeanette Kim from New York City; Clemson fan Nancy Volland from Mount Dora, Fla.; and Oklahoma fan Ruben Hunter from Tulsa, Okla., who is actually a former Sooners walk- on player.
For Kim, the contest is a homecoming of sorts. The 25- year- old lived in San Jose several years ago.
“It’s nice to be back,” Kim said.
The sleeping outside part? Not so nice, but, Kim said, she’s up to the task. Hunter agrees. At 6-foot-2, the former linebacker spent the first night with cold shoulders sticking out of the sleeping bag ESPN provided. ( The company came through with an upgrade the next day.)
The 24- year- old, who was a member of the Oklahoma team that beat Alabama in the 2014 Sugar Bowl, still has friends on the team.
“They all think I’m crazy,” he said.
Besides earning the opportunity to be somewhat uncomfortable throughout their stay, the participants can earn cash and prizes in some challenges, many based on fan engagement on social media.
On Thursday at about 9:30 a.m. — after breakfast from Noah’s Bagels as the temperature hovered around 50 degrees — the contestants pitched volleyballs from the billboard into red trash cans on the ground below in an effort to win a thicker mattress pad. At the same time, a separate battle for votes was playing out on Twitter. That prize? A mini fridge stocked with Dr Pepper.
“I was really worried about it being really cold,” Volland, 59, said of the first night, “but it was actually not bad.”
The only prenuptial agreement she and her husband set, Volland joked, was that she attend three games a year. This year, the superfan went to six.
Two of them will be spending just two days on the billboard, since the fan of the losing team during Saturday’s Cotton Bowl Classic between Notre Dame and Clemson, as well as the one of the Orange Bowl between Alabama and Oklahoma, will be eliminated.
Ross, who was born and raised in Tuscaloosa, expects to be on the billboard until the final championship game.
“They will get it done,” Ross said of his team.
The first night “brought me back to my old military days,” the 39-year- old said.
During his three tours of Iraq, Ross kept his spirits up by watching Alabama play. To be selected by ESPN for a possible seat at the championship game “is the chance of a lifetime,” he said.
While there’s been some good-natured ribbing, liv- ing in such unusual and tight quarters has brought the four fans together.
“We know it’s all fun and games,” Ross said.
“ESPN wouldn’t be where we are without our fans. This billboard celebrates the unique fandom and passion in college football by putting it on display for the nation to see and engage directly with the fans,” said Emeka Ofodile, ESPN’s vice president of marketing. “The College Football Playoff is more than just the game on the field — it’s a unique cultural event, and these fans represent that.”