Ohio State and Levy Restaurants have a new football helmet popcorn bucket on sale starting today, Saturday, October 10, 2026, at Ohio Stadium. The stadium-exclusive bucket is modeled on the Buckeyes’ silver helmet and debuts at the homecoming game against Maryland, which kicks off at 4:15 p.m. ET. Michigan State has the same helmet at Spartan Stadium today, filled with nachos in place of popcorn.
Stadiums keep borrowing from the collectible playbook we track on our Movie Theater Popcorn Buckets hub, and Levy keeps showing up in the story. Levy runs the concessions at both schools. It is also the company behind the NBA arena buckets we wrote about last season in our look at how the NBA is dunking on the movie theater popcorn bucket trend.
The Ohio State bucket copies the real helmet down to the small stuff. The shell is silver with the scarlet, white and black stripe running down the center. Rows of Buckeye leaf stickers cover the side, the same reward decals players earn on the real thing. Flip it over and the helmet becomes the bowl. Ohio State called it “THE best popcorn bucket in College Football” in its Instagram announcement.
You can only buy it inside Ohio Stadium. The announcement did not list a price, a size or a purchase limit, and we will update this story as soon as we have them. If you are going today, we would hit the concession stands early. A homecoming crowd and a brand new collectible are a bad combination for anyone who waits until halftime. The fifth-ranked Buckeyes come in at 4-1, according to Bleacher Report, so expect a full house.
In East Lansing, Michigan State is serving the same helmet in Spartan green with a white facemask and the Spartan logo on the side. This one skips the popcorn. It comes lined with Spartan logo paper and piled with loaded nachos for today’s homecoming game against Illinois. The clear visor stays on, so you can see the chips from the front. We still count it as a popcorn bucket, because that is what it turns into once the nachos are gone.
That shared helmet is the part we would tell a friend about. It looks like one mold, and two Big Ten schools are selling it on the same Saturday. Change the color, swap the decals, and a popcorn bucket in Columbus becomes a nacho bowl in East Lansing. Movie theaters pull the same trick with a tin and a new wrap. A football helmet is a better starting point, because every program already has one that fans want on a shelf. Levy has named Wisconsin, Indiana, Purdue and Northwestern among its other Big Ten partners, so we would not be surprised to see more helmets before the season ends.
Golden Link Inc. made those NBA buckets. Nobody has named the manufacturer of the helmet yet. Our guess is Golden Link again, and it stays a guess until someone confirms it. Levy is not stopping at football. The New Jersey Devils have revealed a popcorn bucket with a playable hockey rink on top, and that story is next on our list. The Ohio State football helmet popcorn bucket is on sale at Ohio Stadium starting today, October 10.
