Minor/Independent/Collegiate League Baseball Logo/Uniform Changes

[bartodell]

2 hours ago, Thaumatrope said:

 

I think think they could have gone with Sod Dogs and had better buy in from the community. 

 

It's one thing to go with an odd or obscure aspect of local culture, but at this point I'm pretty sure Brandiose just pulls adjectives and animals out of a hat.

 

You realize there is one centralized location here in town where these "Sod Poodles" are known for inhabiting. Apparently, it is across the street from the hotel where the "branding agency" stayed when they came to visit the town for research. Funny thing is the city just eradicated them from the area...

[Thaumatrope]

32 minutes ago, bartodell said:

 

You realize there is one centralized location here in town where these "Sod Poodles" are known for inhabiting. Apparently, it is across the street from the hotel where the "branding agency" stayed when they came to visit the town for research. Funny thing is the city just eradicated them from the area...

 

 Were they actually referred to as "sod poodles" or is that just Brandiose brand free association a-la Baby Cakes?

[FinsUp1214]

3 hours ago, B-Rich said:

 

 

 

This sounds painfully familiar to the events in New Orleans  vis-à-vis the Baby Cakes-- no fan EVER suggested the name-- which isn't even a thing; it's DERIVED, mind you. 

 

Yeah I was extremely suspicious of that one when it came out, given that it’s not even what the cake itself or the baby found inside is even called. No WAY a local suggested it. I learned pretty quick when I lived in Louisiana that people look at you really funny if you don’t know what a King Cake is!  So knowing that, I can’t imagine in a million years a local would get that wrong. That was Brandiose BS from the start.

[Oso]

4 hours ago, Thaumatrope said:

 

 Were they actually referred to as "sod poodles" or is that just Brandiose brand free association a-la Baby Cakes?

 

I have many ties to Amarillo, and know many people from there. Before Brandiose brought this idiotic name to the table, none of us have ever referred to, nor ever heard prarie dogs referred  to as sod poodles.

 

Yet, Tony Ensor and other member of the organization have gone on record multiple times claiming they conducted focus groups, and swear that the name is synonymous with the Panhandle. I don't know exactly where members of said the said focus group were from, but I'd wager that very few of them have ever stepped foot in Amarillo, nevermind lived there.. and if they did, they likely were paid to go with the flow and swallow this crappy name.

[Oso]

21 hours ago, B-Rich said:

 

 

 

This sounds painfully familiar to the events in New Orleans  vis-à-vis the Baby Cakes-- no fan EVER suggested the name-- which isn't even a thing; it's DERIVED, mind you.  The overwhelming majority of folks here hate it; the owners made their short term merch money from geeks and hipsters FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY who like the "cute" "playful" nickname, and after alienating the fan base,  the owners are now moving the team on to Wichita.

 

Damn, I wish we would have had a Dusty here in New Orleans.

 

You pretty much nailed it on the head. The team hasn't hid from the fact that they are selling merchandise all over the country, going as far as putting a map with all the states where people have purchased Sod Poodle gear (33 to be exact). Yet, go check out any Amarillo news site on Social Media and check out the comments section, or even the Sod Poodles' own page. The response from the locals is not just against the name-- it's overwhelmingly against it. This isn't spur of the moment either, they have been from the start. The day the names in the organization's fraudlent "Name The Team" contest were unveiled, a petition was put online asking the team to punt and come up with better names. Within 48 hours, the petition generated over 4 THOUSAND signatures. Atop that, if I had a penny for the number of times I have seen someone from Amarillo claiming they refuse to go to the games or spend a penny on anything involving the team, I'd own the franchise myself and rebrand them with something far more normal than the gibberish Brandiose spits out.  Does it mean a damn thing if someone from St. Albans, Vermont, Walla Walla, Washington or Barrow, Alaska owns a Sod Poodles hat, when people in Amarillo are threatening to reject the team as a whole because of it? Trust me, Amarillo isn't exactly a baseball hot bed, and a majority of the fan base hated the tax burden for the stadium being  passed on to them. A majority would have had the deal revoked from Day 1, and would just as soon done without the team because of it. It's comic.. this franchise is saddling them with a tax burden most of them don't want, sticking a name on them most of them hate, and yet they still have the temerity to expect these people to drop their hard earned money to keep them afloat? Good luck with that one. 

 

New Orleans is a perfect example of what over the top bs naming can do. If changing the name from Zephyrs, an established brand, clean and classic identity, to the nonsensical... err excuse me... let me put this in Brandiose terms.. "fun" moniker brought a handful of new fans through the gates, I'll be shocked. It clearly didn't bring enough in, as you said, the team is uprooting and heading to Kansas. But hey, at least someone in Beckley, West Virginia probably owns a Baby Cakes hat.

[rams80]

You don't understand, those ten thousand or so one-time merchandise purchases pay the bills for a team in a gate-based revenue business that has ~70 home games a year.

 

/sarcasm

[CDunn]

2 hours ago, rams80 said:

You don't understand, those ten thousand or so one-time merchandise purchases pay the bills for a team in a gate-based revenue business that has ~70 home games a year.

 

/sarcasm

Last year MiLB reported $70.8 million in merch sales among the 160 teams. That's an average of $442.5K per team and up from $68.3 M in 2016. Obviously not every team is not making $442.5K in merch and newer teams/names are more likely to be the ones making more than that. If you look at the top 25 teams from last year, Brandiose is responsible for 7 of the identities. I don't like a lot of their recent work, but they know what they're doing.

 

[Gothamite]

25 minutes ago, Sabres7200 said:

If you look at the top 25 teams from last year, Brandiose is responsible for 7 of the identities. I don't like a lot of their recent work, but they know what they're doing.

 

Nobody says they don’t know what they’re doing.  That’s not the problem.

 

The problem is that what they’re doing is potentially corrosive and bad for the sport, putting short-term merchandise sales ahead of everything else.  Brandiose didn’t invent this sugar-rush junk food model, but they do seem to have perfected it. 

[TShaw528]

I'm biased because they're my hometown team, but I think one example Brandiose nailed are the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. It's a weird, made up name, but the area was a huge steel town, so it has some basis in local roots. Fans pretty much like the name, but they still sell merch nationwide pretty consistently (The bacon hats sold in all 50 states in no time). Strikes the right balance between being a fun name while still making some sense.

[bartodell]

22 hours ago, Thaumatrope said:

 

 Were they actually referred to as "sod poodles" or is that just Brandiose brand free association a-la Baby Cakes?

No, we call them prairie dogs...

[Thaumatrope]

5 hours ago, TShaw528 said:

I'm biased because they're my hometown team, but I think one example Brandiose nailed are the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. It's a weird, made up name, but the area was a huge steel town, so it has some basis in local roots. Fans pretty much like the name, but they still sell merch nationwide pretty consistently (The bacon hats sold in all 50 states in no time). Strikes the right balance between being a fun name while still making some sense.

 

The name isn't entirely made up as there's such a thing as pig iron, which is an unprocessed form of iron. It's not a huge stretch to go from pig iron to iron pigs.

 

That being said, it's hard not to look at Lehigh Valley in the light of Brandiose's more recent work and wonder if this was the start of their descent into the absurd.

[rams80]

9 hours ago, Sabres7200 said:

Last year MiLB reported $70.8 million in merch sales among the 160 teams. That's an average of $442.5K per team and up from $68.3 M in 2016. Obviously not every team is not making $442.5K in merch and newer teams/names are more likely to be the ones making more than that. If you look at the top 25 teams from last year, Brandiose is responsible for 7 of the identities. I don't like a lot of their recent work, but they know what they're doing.

 

 

Query: What's Brandiose's retainer fee again?

[DustDevil61]

15 hours ago, Thaumatrope said:

 

The name isn't entirely made up as there's such a thing as pig iron, which is an unprocessed form of iron. It's not a huge stretch to go from pig iron to iron pigs.

 

That being said, it's hard not to look at Lehigh Valley in the light of Brandiose's more recent work and wonder if this was the start of their descent into the absurd.

 

Some of Brandiose’s (generally earlier) identities are good or at least decent. Lehigh Valley is one of them, as is the California League’s Inland Empire 66ers IMO (despite the mascot-swinging-an-object-shaped-like-a-baseball-bat that’s become one of their crutches). I’d also say that, all in all, the El Paso Chihuahuas is decent. I also believe they (or their predecessor Plan B Studios) created the incredible-yet-far-too-shortly-lived Pioneer League’s Casper Ghosts identity.

 

However, it was around the El Paso unveiling that it became apparent that they started to use the same copy-and-paste elements, particularly the triangular smirk off to the side of the mascot’s face, the large, comic-book-or-anime-esque eyes, bulked-up arms, and so forth, combined with their focus on names for shock value, that they jumped the shark for me.

 

Edited November 23, 2018 by DustDevil61
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[The_Admiral]

On 11/20/2018 at 11:22 AM, SFGiants58 said:

I’m just waiting for the Springfield (Illinois) Clowin’ Pogos. You know Brandiose has that identity prepared.

They're just storing that one away in the basement for now.

[SFGiants58]

11 minutes ago, the admiral said:

They're just storing that one away in the crawlspace and backyard (when the crawlspace fills up) for now.

 

Fixed for accuracy.

 

Likewise, I’m sure they’ve got Houston Candymen buried in a shed.

[The_Admiral]

Someone at Brandiose is like "okay, now the gay teenage runaways, are they more of a tertiary logo or do we go all the way down to quaternary there, and should they all be holding bats?"

[DC in Da House w/o a Doubt]

Any word on if the Frederick Keys are moving to a red, white, and blue color scheme?  Not sure why they would, since they're an Orioles affiliate and these colors look rather Nationals-esque.  But their twitter profile has a red and blue Keys logo, and you can see their ASG logo for 2019 below

 

https://twitter.com/FrederickKeys

 

[Dilbert]

The Keys have a deal with the Orioles through 2020 and i havent heard of any rebranding or color changes for Frederick. I think its just a one off for the all star game

[Brian in Boston]

As part and parcel of the transition from independent minor-pro to summer collegiate league play, Traverse City Baseball has announced six finalist identities in a "Name-the-Team" contest that will replace the former Beach Bums moniker. According to the club, said finalists were selected based upon the number of submissions received and the unique connection each name has to Traverse City and Northern Michigan. 

 

According to the team website, the finalists - and their meanings - are:
 

Black Pearls – This one has a double meaning as it is a specific type of cherry but also the ship from The Pirates of the Caribbean. Cherry or Pirate? It’s both! Make sure to check out James Jesse Strang before you ahrrrrrrrgue against this one.

Dogmen – This mythical creature is said to be living in Northern Michigan since the days the Odawa tribe lived along the Manistee River. Is this a doggone good name or what?

Dune Bears – A nod to the Sleeping Bear Dunes legend of Misha Mokwa and the spectacular Sleeping Bear Dunes which has brought international acclaim to the Grand Traverse area. Could we put a replica dune in the outfield?

Pit Spitters – A tribute to the tradition of, well, pit spitting. Could add some fun and games to the ballpark experience!

Tree Shakers – Have you ever seen how the wonderful, tasty cherries are harvested? You shake them! Can you feel the ballpark shakin’ yet?

Sasquatch – Are the rumors true? Is there a Bigfoot in Northern Michigan? Well if we select this name, all of those rumors will be put to rest.

   
If you're so inclined, feel free to rank the names at Select the Team Name!

[Brian in Boston]

As part and parcel of the transition from independent minor-pro to summer collegiate league play, Traverse City Baseball has announced six finalist identities in a "Name-the-Team" contest that will replace the former Beach Bums moniker. According to the club, said finalists were selected based upon the number of submissions received and the unique connection each name has to Traverse City and Northern Michigan. 

 

According to the team website, the finalists - and their meanings - are:
 

Black Pearls – This one has a double meaning as it is a specific type of cherry but also the ship from The Pirates of the Caribbean. Cherry or Pirate? It’s both! Make sure to check out James Jesse Strang before you ahrrrrrrrgue against this one.

Dogmen – This mythical creature is said to be living in Northern Michigan since the days the Odawa tribe lived along the Manistee River. Is this a doggone good name or what?

Dune Bears – A nod to the Sleeping Bear Dunes legend of Misha Mokwa and the spectacular Sleeping Bear Dunes which has brought international acclaim to the Grand Traverse area. Could we put a replica dune in the outfield?

Pit Spitters – A tribute to the tradition of, well, pit spitting. Could add some fun and games to the ballpark experience!

Tree Shakers – Have you ever seen how the wonderful, tasty cherries are harvested? You shake them! Can you feel the ballpark shakin’ yet?

Sasquatch – Are the rumors true? Is there a Bigfoot in Northern Michigan? Well if we select this name, all of those rumors will be put to rest.

   
If you're so inclined, feel free to rank the names at Select the Team Name!