In Role as Entrepreneurs, NFL Players Specialize in a Familiar Fowl

Sometime before the start of last football season, his ninth in the NFL, Shawntae Spencer sat his family down for The Speech. Daddy wasn’t going to be playing any more football, he told them. By then the ball was rolling for Spencer, then just 30 and newly signed to the Oakland Raiders, to open 15 franchises of the Richardson, Texas-based chicken giant Wingstop to his native Pittsburgh — which is to say he’d already begun to eat a whole lot of Wingstop.

“On travel days in Oakland we’d make the rookies go out for food,” said Spencer, who played the first eight years of his career with the 49ers. “I’m excited. Pittsburgh is a big sports town, and there’s not a dominant wing provider in the greater Pittsburgh area and Wingstop’s got a different model. It’s kind of like that sweet spot that Chipotle found in the Mexican space, serving restaurant quality food. We’re still going to be at that quality or even better.”

When the first store opens (his team is aiming for a May 2014 debut) there will be no shortage of takers willing to take Spencer at his word. According to the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association, the average American ate fifty-eight pounds of chicken in 2010. The USDA’s Economic Research Service says chicken raisers will produce 36 billion pounds of chicken — broilers, they’re called in industry parlance.

“Chicken’s not just one of those things where it’s looked at as just an appetizer,” Spencer says enthusiastically. “Now it’s really a center of the plate dish.”

The league’s fraternity of current and former players are no strangers to the restaurant business. Their names have been attached to barbecue stops, steak houses, burger joints and pizza spots. But a crop of athletes-turned-entrepreneurs are putting an increasing amount of faith and dollars on the future of a proven commodity: Chicken.

As an investor in Wingstop, Spencer joins a class of NFL alumni which includes former stars Willie McGinest, Ron Stone and Hall of Famer Troy Aikman, who is the company’s national spokesman. And in recent weeks, Wingstop announced it was making a splash in the Northwest by partnering with the Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Sidney Rice.

“Wingstop is my favorite restaurant,” said Rice, who is teaming up with another Washington-area owner to open five additional restaurants. “I travel a lot, and as soon as I land, the first thing I do is find the closest Wingstop. They have the best wings and always make them fresh to order. When I was given the opportunity to join the company, I knew it was a chance I couldn’t pass up.”

Recipe for success

Wingstop boasts a robust 575 locations which saw 13 percent increases in same store sales, opened 57 stores last year alone, and has financial commitments to open nearly 400 more in the U.S., Mexico, Singapore and Russia. But not every entrepreneur is sold on the idea that Wingstop is the key to success in the chicken business.

Frank Rice

, who had a cup of coffee in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Bucs, helps run his family’s Popeyes stores. And Kamerion Wimbley, who just signed a multi-year deal with the Tennessee Titans, just opened a family-style restaurant called Wings N’ Things. It’s in his hometown of Wichita, Kansas.

So determined was former NFL defensive end Raheem Brock to diversify his Wingstop menu, he cut ties with Wingstop and reopened his restaurant as Brock’s Wings. Last year, he stripped away the franchise’s signage. Brock says he was frustrated with the level of flexibility. The transition, which happened early last year, brought him more control and allowed him to make more additions to the menu. He now serves seafood, salads, pizza and a selection of beer and wine.

“It was a process, but we knew we wanted something for everyone.”

They also wanted to be able to deliver on the Temple University campus, where Brock is an alum.

“Franchising was kinda tough,” Brock continues. “If I had to do it differently I would have done more research, more homework. The hardest part was getting the right manager that I could trust. He worked with a lot of family and the family thing just never works. It was a tough process, to be stuck in somebody’s rules and you can’t bend them or they’ll penalize you. I don’t have to pay an annual fee to anybody, so that’s great.”

Spencer said he heard of Brock’s issues with his franchise, and says that many entrepreneurs will do well to hire consulting agencies that handle logistical issues that arise.

“You hear success stories and horror stories, and that’s with any business,” Spencer says. “Certain risks are eliminated through the infrastructure of the franchise, so really it becomes about having the right people in place and having the operations component set. If they’re not operating well it’s going to be very difficult to expand.”

Costs rise, but so does demand

Wings, a broiler chicken’s most expensive and succulent part, became more expensive than ever earlier this year. Wing prices soared to 14 percent on the eve of the Super Bowl. The Wall Street Journal cited a report by the National Chicken Council which said 1.23 billion segments were to be consumed at parties and restaurants for the Super Bowl.

The high cost of wings is deterring some entrepreneurs from putting all their bones in one basket. Others, like Rice and Spencer, believe in the appeal the Wingstop brand has to  blacks and working-class Americans — a fact that’s not lost on the company’s CEO.

“What’s unique about Wingstop is our appeal is greater to Hispanics, African Americans and Asians than it is to Caucasians,” CEO Charlie Morrison told the Dallas Business Journal earlier this month. “So, if you look at where our restaurants are located, usually the demographics fit a stronger ethnic mix than most brands. It’s also very young, and it actually skews to women. However, our marketing historically has not been such that it appeals to that population.”

A model for success

Every would-be franchiser and former athlete would do well to familiarize themselves with the story of Junior Bridgeman. Shawntae Spencer has.

According to the St. Louis Business Journal, Bridgeman, who played 12 seasons in the NBA in the 70s and 80s, currently owns 196 Wendy’s franchises and over 120 Chili’s. His Louisville, Ky-based company, Manna Inc., has nearly 13,000 employees with holdings in Kentucky, Wisconsin, Illinois, Tennessee, and Florida. In 2012, the company cleared over a half-billion in revenue.

In athlete business circles, Bridgeman’s is a story that inspires, even as he quietly builds his empire.

Spencer knows preparation and foresight was key to Bridgeman’s success, which is why he’s currently obsessed with McDonald’s foray into the chicken wing market.

“What does that do to the supply chain?” he shared recently. “That’s the elephant in the room because they eat up such a big supply.”

Ultimately, Spencer hopes that his cache as a former football player will help endear customers to his businesses, but Wingstop says the food comes first.

“I don’t know that we’ve dug deep,” into whether sports figures help drive consumers into Wingstop, said Lisa Spooner-Whyte, the brand’s senior marketing manager. “Ron Stone has been a partner for seven years. He participates and he comes to the conventions but he hasn’t necessarily used [his status] as a draw. Our food is what brings people in. It’s wonderful to be able to promote our little brand but by the same token, the brand partner that was an accountant or tools salesman still get local recommendations. And they’re based on the food and the service.”