New Scaratings

Good news for franchise locations. The biggest franchise has signed on, many others should follow.


NTN Buzztime, Inc. Signs Extension for 64 Buffalo Wild Wing Franchisee-Owned Restaurants
CARLSBAD, Calif., July 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- NTN Buzztime, Inc. (NYSE American: NTN), signed an agreement with Diversified Restaurant Holdings to extend its entertainment services for 64 Buffalo Wild Wing franchises through December 2020. 

"Buffalo Wild Wings franchisees understand the draw of Buzztime Entertainment," said Ram Krishnan, NTN Buzztime CEO.  "They know Buzztime helps increase their monthly revenue by attracting a loyal clientele.  In fact, during tests when Buzztime was removed from the premises, Buzztime players took their business elsewhere. Therefore, many of the 580 Buffalo Wild Wing franchisees are evaluating continuing their Buzztime subscriptions. Already, one of the largest Buffalo Wild Wing franchise owners, Diversified Restaurant Holdings, extended 64 venues for another year with some locations converting to a mobile only based experience.  We hope they are the first of many franchisees to protect their patron experience as well as take advantage of our new mobile and capital light offering."
"We are excited about both the partnership and the outlook for Buzztime," Ram continued.  "Our summer Trivia for Cash competition is already on pace to exceed the number of games played by 100% vs our previous highest month, and our recent Nielsen study highlights that 7 of 10 players are more likely to choose a venue with Buzztime and visit frequently, to the tune of 3 times over a 4-week period."

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BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Orioles and the 9 and 5!!

I am assuming that the option of a mobile only experience means there are no tablets on site? That would suck for a lot of reasons.

But, this seems to be a good start to the proceedings.

Right, no tablets in the stores if the franchise switches over to this “light” platform. Much cheaper per month and no hassle of returning, handing out and cleaning bad tablets. This light platform is what is being pitched to all possible new BT locations.

A cheap, used iPad or Android tablet that works over the location’s WiFi is easily had. I have 2 plus an old IPhone with no SIM card that works the BT app on WiFi and my current phn. So I’m at 4 playmakers.

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BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Orioles and the 9 and 5!!

Hopefully with these “mobile only” sites Buzztime rolls out an update to the app that includes clues to the games soon.

And all the rankings boards. Anyone who uses the BT app then does the survey that comes up after every game please mention needing the local and national rankings as well as clues. BT is definitely working on getting the hour long games in there.

Plus this “light system” is still a ways down the road. The signers are keeping the tablets for now.

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BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Orioles and the 9 and 5!!

I have mixed selfish feelings about this. It seems like this solidifies how a corporate store GM recently confirmed no progress on renewal from a corporate owned perspective. It seems like now that is kind of official since they are contracting with franchises directly and publicly disclosing in a press release - the idea of a chain wide master renewal is indeed officially dead.

While Im glad to see that franchise group sees value to keep, all of the locations in 200 miles of home and 90% in places I travel to are corporate, so I am probably SOL.

Reminds me of TGIF years ago. They all had as a brand standard, then went to a ‘franchise pick and choose model’. Briad, their top franchisee held on for a while and pulled out themselves. By now I dont think any have it - if they do they are few and far between maybe owned by a handful of single unit owners.

How can a player find out which BWW's are franchisees and which are corporate?

Ask the manager on duty. Can’t get any easier than that. The bartenders probably know as well.

But now would be the perfect time to actually talk to a General Manager of all our local BWW to ask about keeping BT. We have to keep on the managers every single time we go in to the locations. The squeaky wheel axiom is what gets attention at all BWW. I know from experience at our store. Also if you can get an email address from the store general manager for the Bww District Manager that would be better.

If you're at a corporate store you may be out of luck though.

Talk to a manager as often as possible.

Working on ours.

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BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Orioles and the 9 and 5!!

Easiest way to tell:

Go to the general BWW site and look up a location. The 4 digit store number is buried in the URL. Leading Zero = corporate. leading 3 = franchise.

Example:

Corporate:
https://www.buffalowildwings.com/en/loc ... etail/0620
https://www.buffalowildwings.com/en/loc ... etail/0124
https://www.buffalowildwings.com/en/loc ... etail/0521

Franchise:
https://www.buffalowildwings.com/en/loc ... etail/3464
https://www.buffalowildwings.com/en/loc ... etail/3822
https://www.buffalowildwings.com/en/loc ... etail/3599

The manager at the Bloomingdale, IL location came over to our table last night.
Told us that they will be dis-continuing Buzztime in "early fall".

RAY J.

Sincere disappointment!

Reb said boards were unreliable anyway.

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Merkin

Actually the boards have been fairly reliable.
Most of them would last for 3.5-4 hours before crapping out.

So Bloomingdale is a franchise. Has the General Manager and District Manager given any thought to extending the contract as other Franchises have? Do they even know they can decide on their own, on a store by store basis?

I'll put the link to the 2 recent BT press releases. Maybe you can print these and show them to your GM. They may not be aware of the "capital light' system, without tablets, coming down the pike that will be much cheaper and no hassle or expense of sending back tablets etc.

https://www.buzztime.com/business/blog/ ... staurants/

https://www.buzztime.com/business/blog/ ... usinesses/

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BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Orioles and the 9 and 5!!

Bud, the people I've talked to over there say that they're a corporate store.

38628 is the Bloomingdale site ID so according to Bejoe that should be a franchise?

So not sure whats up with that? Also there are BWW IDs that start with 1s, 2s and 4s. Which are they? Ohh and they are 5 digit not 4 digit as Bejoe mentioned above so maybe I'm looking at the wrong number in the URL??

OHHHH, I was looking at the BT ID number not the BWW website store number. What threw me off was that all the MD BWW franchisees start with 3 for the BT ID and they are all franchises and the store numbers are all 3 too.

So, Bloomingdale is a corporate store number 0392, then yes probably done.

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BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Orioles and the 9 and 5!!

Still have Time Out West going forward, I hope.

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Merkin

Sorry for any confusion. I was referring to the BWW site store number. Not the BT site ID which goes in numerical order based on sign on date. For example DFW champions center is one of the newest Corp. stores with the ‘new store design’. On the BT site they have one of the highest Site ID since it just opened in Jan 2019

https://www.buzztime.com/site/41050/players

However on the BWW site they have one of the highest store numbers starting with a leading zero

https://www.buffalowildwings.com/en/loc ... etail/0723

On a side note, I played at that store and they didnt even bother hooking into the TVs. It was tablet only since it just opened in Jan and only keeping until Nov

Another dead giveaway that follows the leading 0 vs 3 on BWW site is to look at the happy hour details. All corp stores follow the 2-6 with reverse at 9-11 PM. Most franchises do their own thing with many only 3-6. PM with no reverse late night hours

Latest from the BT 10Q filed 2 days ago:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data ... rm10-q.htm


Although the Company continues to have discussions with Buffalo Wild Wings and directly with its franchisees regarding the possibility of continuing the Company’s relationship with them beyond November 2019, which is when the relationship under existing agreements terminates in accordance with their terms, and although one Buffalo Wild Wing franchisee agreed to extend the Company’s entertainment services to that franchisee’s 64 locations through December 2020, the Company has begun to reduce certain operating expenses in anticipation of the termination of existing agreements. If the Company extends its relationship with Buffalo Wild Wings, the Company expects the relationship will be significantly different than in the past, as the Company believes that Buffalo Wild Wings prefers a mobile-only, trivia-driven solution to the Company’s tablet-based platform

This "Buzztime Basic" without tablets will be the future of all new installs in mom and pop bars and hopefully BWW will come back.

However, "Buzztime Basic" bars are already being ruled ineligible to win the Smartest Bar tournament which is only trophies for bars this time, so no big deal. But, individuals can win good money. $3000 on the final game.

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BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Orioles and the 9 and 5!!

I can hardly see enough people playing buzztime
trivia from their mobile phones.It is inconvenient.Also, phones may be needed for other purposes during trivia.Hopefully,there is enough interest outside of BWW should they go a different direction.

Maybe not but mobile only could also just mean bringing a tablet or another capable device. Most BWs (at least in this area) have pretty good WiFi so could just connect to that from a separate tablet or an old smart phone to play as well. Not sure how many people have that option but could be a solution. There are a lot of tablets out there that can be had for pretty inexpensive these days.

Brutus,I subscribe to the KISS theory.Keep it simple stupid.I cannot see enough people using their own device to make this a viable option.

Went into a Diversified Restaurant Holdings BWW (ST. Louis) today and no tablets. I was informed they removed tablets from area stores last Friday, but I could download the App to play. I am not downloading a bad app to play so I guess it's bye-bye BWW. Fortunately there are a few independents around.

Personally, I think Buzztime hurt themselves with the BWW alliance because it's a given reason many local bars dropped BT or didn't sign. BWW became the tail wagging the dog. BWW has families with kids running around which many adults want to avoid. Games designed to appeal to BWW demographics have been weak. BWW use to be a good value however prices have climbed to the point where they are expensive within their class ie. TGIF, Chili's, Applebees, Texas Roadhouse, Red Robin, Rock N Roll Cafe etc.. I can't think of one reason to visit BWW now.

Bugg - I get that it's not ideal but if the 2 options are bring my own device or not play, I'll opt to bring my own. I understand others may not feel that way but if the tablets do go away and there is an option that exists to still be able to play, I will opt for that personally.

An Ipad 2 or 3 that uses the bar wifi can be had on eBay for about $30. The iPad 2 and 3 can be updated to iOS 9.3.5 and the minimum for the BT app is iOS 8. Be careful not to get an iPad 1 they only go up to iOS 5.1 which is no good for BT. The screens on iPads are bigger than the current BT tablets so they would work well for those that think using cell phones are inconvenient.

I also have an old iPhone that is not used anymore for cellular data but still gets wifi. It works just fine with the new BT app as long as there is wifi. The screen is a little small but using that as a second playmaker still leaves my current phone free for texting, emails, etc.

As Brutus said most players would rather use something like an iPad tablet or a unused, old phone that they keep charged and clean than using nothing and sitting at home. But Yes I know old farts are set in their ways and won't want to give up the old blue boxes.
They will learn.

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BUD - Stained Glass Pub Silver Spring MD
OC BUD - Grotto Pizza DE near Ocean City MD

LET'S GO ....Orioles and the 9 and 5!!