If you’ve been to a Sixers game in the past three years, you know there are three things that get the crowd more pumped up than anything.

The first would be a big play, like a slam dunk or clutch fourth-quarter shot.

The second would be the twice-a-night tee shirt toss, when free swag is launched into the stands via gatling guns and handheld air rifles.

And the third is the Wendy’s Frosty Freeze Out, a promotion that has sort of morphed from a minor gimmick into a second-half spectacle.

In case you’re living under a rock and not familiar with the Freeze Out, Wendy’s offers a tiered system of fan rewards when an opposing player misses two free throws in the 3rd or 4th quarter. Stage 1 is a free small Frosty. Stage 2 is a small Frosty and a small fry. And stage 3 is a medium Frosty and a medium fry.

Everybody loves free stuff, right? This results in fans going absolutely bonkers while members of the Dunk Squad and dance team wave huge cardboard cutouts behind the basket.

Serious question though –

Do opponents really shoot worse during the Freeze Out? Or is this just a fun sideshow without a true on-court advantage? It’s actually the former, backed up via this statistic provided to Crossing Broad from the Sixers’ PR staff:

In the first half of home games, opponents are shooting 75 percent from the free-throw line (11th worst in the league), but in the second half of home games when the Frosty Freeze-out takes into effect, opponents are shooting 71 percent, third-worst in the league.

That’s pretty gnarly, if we’re being honest. If you take it a step further and go over to the NBA Stats page, you find that the Sixers are allowing 20.4 free throw attempts per game at the Wells Fargo Center, 8.8 of which take place in the first half while 11.6 occur in the second half. So opponents are only making about eight free throws on average in the 3rd and 4th quarters combined, which is a nice number. The fan noise, spurred by the Freeze Out, really does add a competitive advantage.

And it seems like everybody is down with the promotion. I haven’t come across anyone who has poo-poo’d the Freeze Out. We’ve got guys like the state Attorney General claiming free Frosties:

So that was the main question I had, just wondering whether opponents perform differently during the promotion.

Another question was this:

How many people actually go to Wendy’s and pick up their free Frosty? I asked around, and unfortunately that answer is almost impossible to find.

That’s because Wendy’s, similar to other fast food spots, operates via a franchise system, so the various locations have different back offices. That makes data collection difficult, since each individual restaurant would have to pull those numbers, then we’d parse from there.

I got in touch with one of those franchisees, Anthony Romeo, who noted that the Freeze Out was so popular that Wendy’s awarded the Philadelphia Co-Op their national “partnership of the year” award in 2018, in recognition of its success. He also explained that the promotion sells the relevance of the Wendy’s brand simply through the amount of fanfare and media attention it receives. That’s a legitimate point, and this Kevin Harlan call is a great example of that – a viral sports moment that generated a lot of publicity:

One way in which the promotion changed was the addition of that escalator last season, the extra bonuses I mentioned above that include the fries and/or medium size upgrade.

Romeo shared some information about that:

“While the latter only has happened once or twice, I can attest we had car loads of people redeeming.  My few restaurants are out in Bucks County, but we redeemed 55 medium fries and medium Frosties at one location on that day. The city locations receive much higher engagement. With 140 Wendy’s restaurants participating, I would imagine on those triple trigger days the redemptions are in the (thousands).”

So there you go. It’s a win-win for everybody. The Sixers benefit from their opponents shooting poorly from the line. Wendy’s receives publicity and brand awareness. Fans get free food and we the media get something fun and goofy to write about.

(This clip is from last year, but when Robert Covington was traded, the Sixers’ Frosty hype man became Shake Milton. Norvell Pelle has now inherited the role.)