sports

Goodyear Creates Tire Art For Bowl Game

Goodyear is honoring the teams playing in the  87th annual Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic on Jan. 2 with tributes to their mascots made out of hundreds of tires. 

On the field at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the officials will unveil massive “Texas-sized” statues of University of Southern California’s mascot, Tommy the Trojan, and Tulane University’s mascot, the Green Wave.

The mascot tire art was handcrafted by former minor league baseball player Blake McFarland..

A Cotton Bowl tradition since 2016, McFarland has created similar statues of the participating teams’ mascots in years past, including Wisconsin’s Bucky the Badger, Notre Dame’s Fighting Leprechaun, Alabama’s Big Al Elephant, the Georgia Bulldog and Ohio State’s Brutus the Buckeye. 

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Standing between 6 and 7 feet tall and weighing more than 500 pounds collectively, the artwork was constructed from more than 300 Goodyear-branded tires, uses approximately 10,000 hidden staples and took a total of 438 hours to complete.

The tire art embodies the road-tested perseverance each team exemplified throughout the season, says Meg Lee, vice president of Marketing, Goodyear. 

“For loyal fans traveling across the country to support their teams, tire art is a celebration of their drive and their journeys well-traveled,” Lee says in a release. 

The artwork will serve as the centerpiece for many of the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic festivities leading up to the game and will be donated to the schools following the game.

The agreement extends a more than 60-year association with college football dating back to when the Goodyear Blimp first provided aerial coverage at the 1955 Rose Bowl game.

Fans can watch the 2023 Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic on ESPN on Jan. 2 at 1 p.m. ET.

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