Big Fogg: The Game-Changing Invention of Sideline Misting Fans
The President of Big Fogg, Christopher P. Miehl, has often been asked how misting fans first ended up on the sidelines of NFL and NCAA football games. This story has been repeated many times, but it still feels like it happened just yesterday.
The Early Days of big Fogg
Christopher Miehl recalls, “It was back in the early to mid-1990s, and I had just been laid off from my job in Santa Barbara. I was living in a studio apartment in Balboa, California, and trying to earn income by consulting for small businesses. One day, I was introduced to two gentlemen who had developed a backyard low-pressure misting system. The company I was consulting for was named Cool Zone.”
As Miehl wrote a business plan for them, he realized that their interest in using downtown Los Angeles for production was not advisable. Instead, a manufacturing facility was established in Hemet, CA, which made financial sense due to tax incentives in the area.
The Lightbulb Moment
On a hot June day, while driving back from Hemet, Miehl and his colleagues passed a dairy farm. Temperatures were in the high 90s, and they noticed a farmer using a large fan with water emitters to cool down the cows.
“We laughed, seeing another application for misting, and joked that the cows were so large they looked like professional football players. Then the idea struck us: misting fans could be placed on the sidelines at football games to cool the players. We could even display the company’s name on the fan shroud for advertisement.”
From Concept to Reality
By Monday, Miehl contacted a friend at USC who believed the idea had merit. He introduced them to Dino Dennis, USC’s football team equipment manager, who approved the concept. That season, misting fans were placed on the USC sidelines for the first time in history. No other team had any sideline cooling system at the time.
After the season, the Aloha Bowl in Hawaii contacted Big Fogg, having seen the fans on TV. Hawaii’s heat made cooling a necessity, and this marked the first time they were paid to supply misting fans for a game.
The NFL Takes Notice
That same year, the Buffalo Bills staged the greatest comeback in NFL history, defeating Houston 48-45 in overtime. Rusty Jones of the Bills reached out to Big Fogg to use misting fans at the AFC Championship Game in Miami. After their victory, they hired Big Fogg to set up misting fans for both the Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys at the Super Bowl in Pasadena.
Miehl recalls, “I worked that sideline and will never forget seeing Michael Jackson and Garth Brooks perform at halftime and O.J. Simpson strolling along the sidelines, assuring people the Bills would win. The Cowboys prevailed.”
A Legacy of Sideline Cooling
Today, every NFL team and most NCAA teams use some form of sideline cooling system. Over the last decade, Big Fogg has provided misting fans for over a thousand NFL and top NCAA games nationwide.
“We may not be the only company doing sideline cooling anymore, but we are certainly the best one,” Miehl states confidently.
Big Fogg has set up its systems at 13 Super Bowl games and for the last 20 Pro Bowl Games.
