Members of BUCK-I-WATCH gather in the Raney House Bolder Room to watch the Ohio State-Michigan game Feb. 12 when Brutus showed up. Credit: Grant Lieberman
As a freshman, Blaze Fletcher-Broderson had a simple idea: to watch the Buckeyes at parties with friends. With Block O and other student organizations failing to offer watch parties for major sporting events, Fletcher-Broderson, a third-year in psychology, said the ball fell into his court.
Buck-I-Watch is a student-run organization on campus with a central motive of hosting watch parties for Ohio State football and basketball games, according to its club site.
Founded in 2022, the club began with the help of Fletcher-Broderson and his friends.
“I found out there were some Big Ten licensing issues that caused Ohio State to prevent major watch parties on campus,” Fletcher-Broderson said. “I circumvented the system by hosting watch parties on off-campus venues, such as The O on Lane, Buffalo Wild Wings and in event spaces such as dorm rooms.”
Fletcher-Broderson said a large part of his motivation for the club was to get students out of their dorm rooms.
“Freshman year, I was watching games alone or with one other person,” Fletcher-Broderson said. “Using our shared passion for the Buckeyes is a perfect way to get freshmen acclimated to campus and adjust to the transition to college.”
In addition to Buckeye sporting events, Buck-I-Watch hosts gatherings for many other games. The group hosted a watch party for the Chiefs-Lions NFL opener and plans to do an event for the Super Bowl in February 2024.
“We also do tournaments around campus,” Fletcher-Broderson said. “We are going to do a turkey bowl flag football tournament in November right before Thanksgiving and hopefully get Brutus there. Last year, Brutus came to our Ohio State-Michigan basketball event.”
Brutus spent time at the event pushing students around in red move-in carts, an opportunity that not many Ohio State students can admit to having been a part of, Fletcher-Broderson said.
As a first-year, Sam Stevens went to the Ohio State-Notre Dame watch party alone. According to Stevens, she met “a lot of new people” at the event, including some friends she still speaks to now.
“It’s just so fun to really get into the game when the Buckeyes aren’t at home,” Steven said. “When I’m sitting at home alone watching a Cincinnati Bengals game or something, it’s just like, yeah, I’m watching the game. But when you are around other people, you get into it, you’re yelling. It’s just a way to really get into the game.”
Echoing Steven’s strong sense of connection, Fletcher-Broderson said the club is all about connecting people with one another.
“I think people can get confused and stressed when they first arrive at Ohio State. We all come into this huge campus with 60,000 people and it’s really overwhelming. Yet, it’s easy to hone in on our passion for the Buckeyes,” Fletcher-Broderson said.
The human connection and shared passion for the love of sports is a prime motivator for Fletcher-Broderson, he said, driving his enthusiasm and commitment to Buck-I-Watch.
“Knowing that I’m providing a community for students to never have to watch a game alone is something that’s really gratifying and special about watching the games with everybody, something that maybe wouldn’t happen at such a macro scale if it weren’t for the shared passion of the Buckeyes on our campus,” Fletcher-Broderson said.
Travis Burnett
A pioneer in the flag football community, Travis helped co-found the Flag Football World Championship Tour, FlagSpin and USA Flag. Featuring 15+ years of content creation for the sport of flag football, creating and managing the largest flag football tournaments on the planet, coaching experience at the youth and adult level as well as an active player with National and World Championship level experience.
