Walk-On’s CEO Brandon Landry, left, with his counterpart at LSU, Parker Edwards. Walk-On’s awarded a scholarship to Edwards, a walk-on athlete on the basketball team who occupied the same seat on the bench as Landry.
A junior at LSU who occupies the last seat on the bench. A 63-year-old woman who walked on to her college golf team as a freshman. A softball player at Purdue who was flabbergasted when Drew Brees showed up to give her an award.
These are all previously unsung college athletes given name, image and likeness deals by Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux since July 1, 2021, when the NCAA allowed such deals for the first time.
For Brandon Landry, CEO of Walk-On’s, the effort is personal. He was a walk-on athlete himself, meaning someone who didn’t get a scholarship, on the Louisiana State University basketball team back in the day. He wants to award such players who don’t get any recognition but play an important role, and build what the brand calls the Walk-On’s Family of Athletes.
“There are probably a handful of people who are out there that can do big deals,” Landry said, like a few superstar college quarterbacks or spectacular wide receivers. “We said, let’s stay true to us at Walk-On’s. Everyone has an underdog moment. That’s the story of Walk-On’s.”
Landry co-founded Walk-On’s with college buddy and fellow walk-on Jack Warner. When they opened their first restaurant in 2003, “We weren’t very good restaurateurs,” Landry told Franchise Times in 2017. “What was important to us was good beer, hot chicks and lots of TVs.”
Warner exited, bought out by New Orleans-based businessman Rick Farrell. Then former NFL superstar Drew Brees became a partner with a 25 percent stake, in 2015, a watershed moment. Today the brand is nearing 100 restaurants with average unit volumes topping $5 million.
Walk-On’s is inking franchise deals with celebrated athletes, too, such as Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, who took a 20 percent stake in the Dallas-area franchisee group. Devin White with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has a minority stake in the Tampa franchise. With celebrity athletes, brands need to be careful that their partners are also good human beings, Landry believes. “The names will only take you so far.”
To its unsung college athletes, Walk-On’s offers modest monetary deals, often in return for social media posts, and selects them by reviewing video submissions. “It’s more about the story,” Landry said. “It’s more about what’s heartfelt. Are they representing our core values?” They awarded about one a week at first, but by the fall had changed that to one a month.
To the LSU basketball player, Parker Edwards, Walk-On’s offered to “take care of the rest of your tuition and pay for your grad school. The kid was literally sitting in my seat at LSU, the last seat,” Landry said. Wearing his old No. 11 jersey, Landry shot some hoops with Edwards after giving him the award.
Emilee Cox, the softball player at Purdue, got a call her senior year of high school from the school’s coach. “She was like, ‘Em, we want you here but at the moment where the money lies, we just don’t have enough.’ I was like, I don’t care, I’m coming,” Cox recalled in a video upon receiving her award. Said Landry: “You just wanted to be a Boilermaker,” and then asked her if she had ever heard of his business partner, who also went to Purdue.
“I’m sitting in his Drew Brees center right now on campus,” Cox replied, and then Brees popped up via video screen. “Oh my gosh. I’m shaking. Oh my gosh, can you see how red I just got?” Cox said.
Brees said: “You could not have picked a better person. I’ve heard so much about you. Great work, Emilee.”
Debbie Blount is the college sophomore who started as a walk-on for Reinhardt University’s golf team. “She’s no longer a walk-on, is playing in the #1 spot on her team & still balances a great GPA,” Walk-On’s tweeted when giving her an award.
Blount put her reaction this way in a video: “I am living the dream being a college athlete. Loving school, loving golf. Live your dream. And by the way, I’m 63 years old. Walk on!”