From Dallas to Times Square: Heisman Trophy campaigns look to make an early impact - ESPN

NEW YORK — Few people understand the unique marketing power of Times Square better than Robert Burck.

Muscled, goateed and impressively tan, the 55-year-old has operated his business from the five-block sliver of Midtown Manhattan for the past 28 years, forging a global brand that has taken him to faraway places such as Australia, Japan and Daytona Beach, Florida. Leaning into the undeniable forces of one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections and a famous pair of tighty whities, he pulls in more than $200,000 annually in tips alone, by his own estimation.

Today, Burck, better known as the Naked Cowboy, is standing on the corner of Seventh Avenue and West 47th Street doing what he does 300-plus days a year: flexing his biceps, strumming his guitar and snapping photos with tourists, surrounded by all of Times Square's other ever-present fixtures. There are billboards for Broadway mainstays «Aladdin,» «Wicked» and «The Lion King»; sprawling advertisements for Coca Cola and M&M's; and street performers dressed as Elmo, Spider-Man and King Kong.

After nearly three decades as the Naked Cowboy, Burck explains, the unrelenting churn of promotional activity in the area tends to blend together.

«It's all a wash for me,» he says.

So, Burck didn't initially notice when Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and running back Kewan Lacy showed up on a pair of 96-foot-tall digital billboards in Times Square on Aug. 24. Part of a two-week promotional residency at the center of the nation's most populous city, the arrival of the star duo was part of the latest phase of the school's aggressive preseason Heisman Trophy campaign built around Chambliss, one of the breakout stars of the Rebels' 2025 season, and Lacy, back this fall