7-Eleven Enters Its First National Sports Sponsorship

IRVING, Texas — 7-Eleven Inc. will serve as the official convenience store of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in the United States and Canada.

Under the terms of the partnership, 8,400 7-Eleven stores in the United States and Canada will participate in UFC promotions.

"UFC has a huge fan base of both male and female young adults who like to shop at convenience stores, making this promotion a great match-up," said 7-Eleven Marketing Director Maria Trujillo. "With one in four of those UFC convenience store shoppers choosing 7-Eleven, that leaves a lot of potential to reach an untapped audience that is important to us.

"I believe this collaboration that includes exclusive UFC merchandise and a prize on every Big Gulp cup provides a great incentive to entice even more fans to shop at 7-Eleven," she added.

To kick off the collaboration, the brands are launching a peel-to-win Big Gulp sweepstakes on Sept. 1. Customers will be able to win prizes by peeling stickers off of Big Gulp cups to win 1.89 million prizes, including food and beverages, discounts on UFC Fight Pass subscriptions, replica UFC championship belts and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

The sweepstakes runs through Dec. 31 and allows fight fans in the U.S. and Canada to buy or collect UFC-branded Big Gulp cups with designs featuring UFC gloves, a UFC Octagon and select UFC athletes. Included on the collectibles are Tyron Woodley, UFC men's bantamweight champion; Cody Garbrandt, UFC women's bantamweight champion; Amanda Nunes, former UFC light heavyweight; champion Daniel Cormier; and UFC featherweight Yair Rodriguez. Fans can also purchase a 20-ounce UFC/7-Eleven travel mug.

Those who purchase a Big Gulp drink will receive a peel-to-win game piece that contains an instant win game piece, redeemable for a prize; an instant win food or beverage prize redeemable at 7-Eleven; or a non-winning ticket redeemable for a 10 percent discount on a purchase at UFCStore.com or a free seven-day UFC Fight Pass subscription.

Instant win prizes include the grand prize of a 2017 Harley-Davidson Motorcycle, as well as five Replica UFC Championship belts, 100 Xbox One EA UFC 2 games and more.

"7-Eleven is one of the world's most innovative and consumer-friendly brands and we're thrilled to launch this new sponsorship," said UFC Vice President of Global Partnership Activation Brette Sadler. "We look forward to continuing our ongoing engagements with consumers in the U.S. and Canada with new and exciting fan activations, such as our Big Gulp sweepstakes."

7-Eleven will also have a presence on UFC.com and live-event programming, as well as integration across multiple UFC-based social and digital platforms.

"We have had some regional, smaller partnerships, but nothing on a national scale, like we are about to do with the UFC," said Trujillo told Sports Business Daily. "We do a lot of in-and-out promotions. But if this is something that truly has legs, we would love to see an extension of the platform."

Based in Irving, 7-Eleven operates, franchises or licenses more than 63,000 stores in 18 countries, including 10,900 in North America.