Take me out to the chicken tender baseball game as my local minor league team celebrates the popular meal’s birthplace. Chicken tenders were the name of the (baseball) game Thursday night at Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester, New Hampshire.
My local minor league baseball team, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, rebranded as the Manchester Buffalo Tenders as part of an ongoing campaign to recognize the 1974 invention of the chicken tender at a nearby restaurant, The Puritan Backroom. Other chicken tender theme nights focused on original and coconut flavored tenders. The celebration included branded gear, a chicken tender bobblehead giveaway and an appearance by competitive eating champion, Joey Chestnut. I, of course, wore my chicken tender hat and ate chicken tenders while watching the team play.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the invention of the chicken tender in 1976, Joey Chestnut took part in a buffalo tender eating competition on the field after the game. He competed against two teams of three in a race to eat 50 buffalo chicken tenders. I also proudly brought home my chicken tender bobblehead. I now have two of the three giveaways, buffalo and original, but am still missing the coconut one. One of the team’s staff members told me the giveaway was very popular with fans and he hoped it would be back next year. I do too (and not just because I need to complete my bobblehead collection).
More opportunities for chicken occasions
At the 2026 Chicken Marketing Summit, held July 27-29 at the Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida, David Jackson, chief operating officer of Simmons Foods and chairman of the National Chicken Council (NCC), said that chicken’s strong association with the Super Bowl represents an underused marketing opportunity that the industry could extend across the calendar year. The industry should be taking advantage of opportunities like chicken wing brackets timed to March Madness and tailgate promotions positioning wings as an alternative to hot dogs at baseball and soccer games, floating the idea of "wing bats" — a nod to the shape of drumettes — as a nickname companies could use in stadium marketing. He focused his talk on new occasions for chicken wings, but I’d argue this applies broadly to other chicken products, like chicken tenders, as well. A chicken tender themed baseball game, to me, feels like the perfect way to get consumers excited about chicken.
.png)
