Charlotte bowl’s recipe for social success: a dash of comedy and a helping of mayo
“Bowl game Twitter” is a metaphorical office space often populated by monotonous messaging, polished leather shoes and expensive Italian suits.
But in this prim and proper subset of college football, the Duke’s Mayo Bowl and its Twitter mastermind Miller Yoho represent a social media account intent on crashing meetings in a Hawaiian shirt, board shorts and flip-flops with a level of comedy and kookiness lost on most every other postseason contest.
“In the end, (football is) a sport where we’re celebrating large men in tight clothes doing hand-to-hand combat with a few rules,” Yoho said. “It’s very funny at its base (level).”
Yoho’s official title is the director of communications and marketing for the Charlotte Sports Foundation — the operating arm that helps put on the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in conjunction with the title sponsor itself.
In practice, though, the Gastonia, North Carolina native is a purveyor of all things mayonnaise and one of college football’s most recognizable, albeit faceless, voices.
“Miller has really cultivated this brand voice for the bowl,” Duke’s Mayo brand manager Rebecca Lupesco told The State. “If you follow him, it’s fun and kind of wild and just poking the bear. It just has a very tight relationship into the football world.”
The making of a Twitter account
Each day, Twitter brings a new battle for public consciousness among its users. Rather than a sword or shield, Yoho arms himself in this modern-day crusade with a cell phone, laptop and WiFi access.
Duke’s Mayo leaves the tweet authoring up to Yoho, with general thoughts here and there. A third-party graphic designer also helps craft any needed graphics. The process is thorough, yet wild — on some level, Yoho throws ideas at the wall to see what sticks.
Last week, those ideas included teasing the milky white, room-temperature mayonnaise Thursday’s winning coach will be doused in following their victory.
Monday’s tweets were comprised of images from South Carolina’s and UNC’s respective trips to the Charlotte Motor Speedway with nods to the Will Ferrell NASCAR movie “Talladega Nights.”
“Pretty much everything is off the hip,” Yoho explained. “It’s more reactionary. I think it works best for the personality of (the account).”
That Yoho has brought a level of inventiveness to his role as the man behind the curtain fits his track record.
The Furman graduate landed in sports first as an athletic department intern and later as the director of athletics in marketing and promotion for Queens University in Charlotte. His responsibilities ranged from managing social media accounts and stacking chairs to public address announcing at lacrosse games and driving the school’s swim team in a road trip around Ohio.
“Certainly we wouldn’t want to do anything that would not come across as respectful and classy,” Duke’s Mayo Bowl executive director Danny Morrison told The State. “But we do like to have fun, and he’s creative. He amazes me, to be honest with you.”
Yoho concedes he’s never sure which tweets will gain traction. Some have hit as many as 70,000 likes on Twitter. The initial video announcing that Duke’s Mayo would become the new sponsor of the Charlotte-based bowl game featuring former Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly earned ample play on social media.
Then, of course, there are the zanier moments featuring the condiment-themed bowl game that have drawn nationwide attention.
There’s the fan who doused himself in mayonnaise on ESPN’s “College GameDay” show earlier this year. Wisconsin quarterback Graham Mertz also broke the Duke’s Mayo Bowl trophy in a postgame locker room celebration last season, setting off a viral video.
Each event has fed into the ever-evolving online persona procured by Yoho.
“People can probably associate my personality with it,” he said. “But I think it’s a certain part of myself — it’s not who I am. I’m not very outgoing in real life. I’m an introvert. So it’s very interesting that I think the account is an extrovert.”
Boosting Duke’s Mayo Bowl football footprint
For all the goofiness the Duke’s Mayo Bowl and its borderline unhinged Twitter account have brought in recent years, Yoho also feels a level of sentimentality toward his job and the game.
Each year he tries to slip off his usual perch and heads up to the highest corners of Bank of America Stadium. There he sits. High above the tens of thousands of fans who have descended on Charlotte in a given game weekend, Yoho reflects.
He thinks back to the days attending this same bowl game — then under different title sponsors — with his father in the early-2000s. He recalls Georgia running back Nick Chubb racing around the field below. He makes note of the 2007 game between Duke and Cincinnati in which angsty rock band Daughtry performed prior to the contest.
Memes and GIFs fill plenty of Yoho’s time. Memories, though, persist.
“I get to be a cheerleader,” Yoho said. “We don’t have players winning or losing. We’re trying to support the city. I think trying to keep that as kind of a North Star of what we’re doing is really positive for Charlotte.”
Morrison mostly stays off Twitter, but encourages the fun-loving, out-there persona that has come with Yoho’s managing of the social media account.
Every now and then, Yoho’s iPhone lights up with a text from Morrison. “Good tweet,” the former TCU athletic director notes with a thumbs-up emoji.
“Miller Yoho, in my opinion, is the best social media person in the country,” Morrison said.
Since what has become the Duke’s Mayo Bowl account went live in 2009, Yoho has curated plenty of those aforementioned “good tweets.” He’s cultivated a massive chunk of its over 38,000 followers — which outnumbers three of the annual New Year’s Six bowls. He’s also crafted plenty of the over 28,000 individual tweets credited to the Twitter handle.
In a world filled with buttoned-up bowl executives, Yoho has his own recipe for success: a steady dose of comedy and a heavy helping of mayo.
This story was originally published December 28, 2021 at 2:01 PM.
