Rivalry moves from fields to wallets with University FanCards

Gift cards can be a convenient, but oftentimes impersonal, gift. University FanCards aims to make those cold pieces of plastic warm the heart of college football fans.

University FanCards, based in Vestavia Hills, offers gift cards and debit cards emblazoned with a sports fan’s favorite team logo.

In July 2015, University FanCards worked with Crimson Tide Sports Marketing of the University of Alabama to secure its first official athletic logo. With that deal, University FanCards, or UFanCards for short, produces reloadable, prepaid debit MasterCards and specialized gift cards emblazoned with the university’s brand. The concept, co-owner Greg Boggs explained, aims to make a monetary gift more specialized, while also working closely with MasterCard to eliminate the possibility of overdrafting.

“Think of it like cloud banking,” Boggs said.

As the chief marketing officer, Boggs said that it’s always a risky move to start a company, but in his case, the fan base spoke for itself. 

Now a year later, Boggs has relocated his team and massive canvas mock-ups of logos into a new office. When a man moving some furniture into Boggs’ office asked about the mock-up cards, Boggs said the man lit up like any passionate sports fan. Boggs laughed as he remembered the increasingly frequent encounter. 

“He was like, ‘You don’t have Georgia? C’mon, man!’” Boggs said. “When you get the hype, you get it.”

Boggs gave credit for the original idea to his father, Lynn Boggs, who worked for some time on the Chick-Fil-A Bowl board. Once he and his father began doing research to see if a similar product existed, they realized the market was wide open. 

Boggs has worked with the Sports Hall of Fame and with the branding and marketing for a self-started company, Vehicle Media. On the opposite side of the spectrum, his father specialized in finance. 

It was a natural fit for the two of them, Boggs said. 

“We end up complementing each other really well. Both of us are really passionate and have a lot of drive,” Boggs said. “Of course, there are still bumps in the road, but the upside is going to be great. It just takes time.”

UFanCard’s first customer base tackled one of the powerhouse teams of the South: the University of Alabama. Boggs said he couldn’t believe how much interest the university immediately showed. He said he knew that if they secured them, the rest of the schools would follow.

“SEC are the most passionate fans,” he said. “But we also wanted to set ourselves up geographically to go across the country.”

The goal of University FanCards is to get some good-natured rivalries going inside the stores and on the football fields, driving demand from large and small colleges alike. 

Boggs said they have secured about half of the SEC schools. With 14 of them ready to go and a couple more just weeks away from being signed, the new business is on its way to getting the first round of reloadable MasterCards ordered for the upcoming football season. The biggest concern for UFanCards revolves around the amount of time it takes coordinating with MasterCard and universities for card approval. 

But for Boggs, it’s all part of the process to offer people a way to give more personalized gifts in more convenient ways. He said he is also securing an app for smartphones so the card owner can easily control it.

“Don’t give someone a boring gift — give a gift that’s targeting someone’s fan base,” Boggs said.

Alabama stores that carry the card with the University of Alabama logo include Mapco, Mitchell Grocery, Barnes & Noble College, CVS, Murphy USA, The Pantry, Circle K, Fred’s Super Dollar and Family Dollar. Alabama gift cards were released to 1,200 stores in Alabama on August 8 and can contain a money amount of anywhere between $20 to $500. The card itself costs a small fee.

“Even when your team’s not in season, you get to carry them around with you,” said Caroline Novkov, a recent Samford graduate and new marketing intern for UFanCards. 

Go to ufancards.com to order cards or for more information on the release of upcoming logos and where they will be available.