How free Chick-Fil-A made fans stop caring if their team was winning or losing for nearly a decade

WASHINGTON – The WNBA’s Washington Mystics season had three minutes and seven seconds left in it, barring a miraculous comeback, when the crowd began to roar. It wasn’t a final-minute cheer for the starters, who would later leave the floor to polite but less enthusiastic applause. It wasn’t because the home team had done something to get back in the game, either.

The Lynx’s Sylvia Fowles had missed two free throws in a row that seemed fairly inconsequential in a game her team would win 81-70. The fans were cheering because realized their ticket stubs were now worth more than just a memory of going to the game: Thanks to Fowles’ free throw woes, they could be exchanged for a free Chick-Fil-A sandwich.

“I thought it was ironic,” Mystics coach Mike Thibault said. “We were losing, but fans were still excited about the Chick-Fil-A. I mean, it adds excitement to the game.”

The first time he saw the promotion in action, he remembered, was at a Wizards game.

“And I remember that because they needed whoever it was to miss free throws at the line,” he said. “I remember it because it was after my first press conference here and I went to a Wizards game that night or the next day and I remember (thinking), ‘Geez.’ ”

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Lew Strudler, the senior director of corporate marketing at Monumental Sports, was brainstorming with John Natolly, a Chick-Fil-A franchise owner seven years ago about what they could do together to promote his product.

His problem, he said, was getting people through the door of the restaurant to try the chicken. The idea of relating chicken (fowl) to foul shots came up and it went from there.

“We kind of borrowed what they were doing in Houston with the ‘fowl pole’,” Natolly said. In 2006, the Astros introduced a promotion that gave away free Chick-Fil-A sandwiches when an Astros player hit certain “fowl poles” throughout the ballpark.

At first, the idea was to have some sort of giveaway if a Wizards player missed a free throw in the fourth quarter. But that was quickly vetoed.

“We don’t want people to boo our player if they make it,” Strudler said.

For a bit, the promotion also required the Wizards to win. But that condition was quickly discarded.

What they came up with in the end was simple and brilliant: When a player on the opposing team misses two free throws -- on the same trip to the line -- in the fourth quarter at a Wizards or Mystics game, everyone in attendance gets a free Chick-Fil-A sandwich.

It’s created a sort of phenomenon that Wizards fans, players and coaches have to chuckle a bit at -- and has been imitated across the NBA and even in college hoops.

As the promotion enters its seventh year, the enthusiasm -- at least among fans -- doesn’t seem to be wavering. And Strudler and Natolly still marvel at their success -- which they mostly credit to pure luck.

“The first time I heard it I didn’t know what was going on,” said Wizards coach Scott Brooks. “They’re shooting free throws, I understand that they missed the first one. I kind of like (the promotion). I wish we did it every quarter.”

Brooks later added that he preferred Chick-Fil-A’s spicy chicken.

Since the deal began seven years ago, fans have continued to show unwavering excitement at the prospect of free food – even if their team is down. The redemption rate for the free Chick-Fil-A, according to Monumental Sports (which owns the Wizards and Mystics) is between 20-25 percent – which far exceeds the redemption rate for other promotions (it hovers between 3 and 5 percent, according to Natolly.)

“The first reaction you need to look at is the visiting team bench,” Strudler said. “Because when you hear our crowd is really getting loud when the guy is going to take the first free throw, the visiting bench looks up to see why is the crowd getting so excited. And every once in awhile you’ll see a player hitting another player on the leg as they look up and see that.”

The crowd really gets loud if the opposing player misses the first shot on the free throw line.

“Obviously it’s taking his mind off the free throw, thinking, ‘Why is everyone screaming at this particular time?’ ” Strudler said. “And our players on the bench are laughing. We have some players really get behind it. Marcin Gortat is unbelievable. He gets up and starts waving his towel and tries to get fans really going when that happens.”

Gortat, in fact, was caught on camera in 2014 appearing to say during the fourth quarter: “I want Chick-Fil-A” as an opponent was shooting free throws.The video quickly went viral.

But the best push from a player the promotion got, said Natolly, was in 2012 when LeBron James missed two free throws in the fourth and Wizards fans tweeted him thanking him for the free sandwich.

“We couldn’t have paid for better PR,” said Natolly.

Since the promotion began in Washington, other teams in the NBA have tried it including Atlanta, Orlando and the Clippers -- and the number may be growing: Last season, the Wall Street Journal even looked at the promotion's effect on the NBA playoff race. The University of Kentucky also used it in 2016, much to the dismay of Ashley Judd, who called the promotion “tacky” in a tweet.

“Your promotion for fans to cheer against kids attempting free throws is tacky. Please find another in game promotion,” she wrote.

And not every player is quite as into it as Gortat. At least, all the time.

The promotion is the same age as John Wall’s career with the Wizards, but he remembers it as something that made him cringe back during his first year in the league, when the team finished 23-59. “I heard that a lot my rookie year,” he said earlier this month at the team’s media day.

“I feel like as long as we’re winning, it’s cool,” Bradley Beal added. “But if we’re losing I hate it. I hate it.

"Because they’re screaming loud just for Chick-Fil-A.”

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