“Son, I’m Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy?”

By Kurt Hunzeker (with some copy points provided by the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)

“Son, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy?”

For the second time in 12 years, the city of Pittsburgh will be hosting the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. While such renowned “baseball cities” like St. Louis have yet to enjoy a Midsummer’s Classic since the Sixties, MLB has once again given the Pirates a chance to rekindle its fan base, and add some “oomph” to the somewhat struggling franchise.

Projected estimates have the economic windfall of the 2006 MLB All-Star Game at $52.3 million for the entire All-Star Week; which now consists of a handful of events, all of which have sponsors spending millions of dollars to MLB for the presenting sponsorship.

The first big domino for the ASG debuts on Tuesday, August 2nd, when the Pirates unveil the ASG logo before its home game. A number of dignitaries will be there…but most notably the designer of the logo, Pittsburgh-native Burton Morris.

Morris’ unique design style should breathe some fresh air in what has become a stagnant template for MLB ASG logos: use the host team’s primary colors, incorporate some feature of the host team’s ballpark, and use a font NOT associated with the team as the dominant text style.

Morris’ work (http://www.burtonmorris.com) can be summed up using adjectives like: bright, colorful, moving and energetic…all adjectives not at all descriptive of most ASG logos. His work has been commissioned for museums and rock concerts, menus, consumer product packaging and print advertisements. So this will not be your run of the mill sports logo.

“I think we've all arrived at a very special place. Spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically.”

It will be interesting to see how Morris’ logo is received, and the various applications the team will use it (and the design style) for all collateral leading up to the game next year. If I was in charge, I would take this design and:

1. Blanket the city – Every window, door and car should have the artwork proudly displayed. The Seattle Mariners frequently employ this tactic by delivering the season’s particular slogan via a poster or window cling to every business, retail or corporate, in downtown Seattle. It is hard to walk anywhere in downtown Seattle and not see a Mariners’ poster (credit Kevin Martinez, the team’s marketing chief).
2. Uniform the kids – We’re talking above and beyond t-shirts. School book covers, lunch boxes and shoelaces should all have the commemorative logo on it. If a school district has a reading program, every child involved gets a bookmark advertising everything ASG-related.
3. Outfit the ballpark – So what if PNC Park is not that old. Every available nook and cranny should have this design style on it. New signs, new wall coverings…I’d even change the style of the outfield fence.

Here’s the best aspect of using a famed designer for this…it will be timeless. Once the game ends, remove the dated logo, but keep the style up to remind everyone that Pittsburgh put on the best Midsummer’s Classic ever. The ballpark is timeless, so should this logo.

Then again, I’d hate for someone to say this after he/she sees the logo:

“That is, without doubt, the worst pirate I've ever seen.”

“Show me the money!”

By Kurt Hunzeker (with some copy points provided by the movie Jerry McGuire)

“I am out here for you. You don't know what it’s like to be ME out here for YOU. It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, OK?”

What’s harder…A) understanding/believing anything the newly outspoken Tom Cruise says, or B) still being a NHL fan? Toss up, but now we hockey fans get to dust off our favorite team’s caps and proudly wear them once again now that the owners and players agreed that greed did not get them very far last (lost) season.

So now what? Fans like me, the ones with both the home AND away sweaters AND the alternate/vintage home jersey AND at least four caps/visors AND a number of miscellaneous logo-ed merchandise are chomping at the bit to catch a game live again. Unfortunately for the 30 NHL teams out there, our collective group is smaller than the number of people who saw Gigli.

“The key to this business is personal relationships.”

Damn straight. The NHL must become the most fan-friendly sport in the marketplace. Lowered ticket prices are a start, but that’s not a big enough carrot for families deciding between going to the game or catching a rerun of CSI on Spike TV.

NHL marketing executives must trash their previous mindsets of promotions and adopt a hybrid of the zany antics of Minor League Baseball promotions and the completely unknown world of hockey fan-hockey game direct interaction.

Here are some examples, free of charge, to any executive out there (any more on top of this will cost you):

1) Pre-game autograph sessions for kids 15 and under
Post-game won’t cut it because some games end around 11pm. Not only do families beat the traffic, but kids get to tell their hometown players how much they root for them.

And this idea goes both ways…players can sign pictures, trading cards and other collectible items, and young fans can sign the players’ sweaters and sticks. This gives young fans OWNERSHIP of a player and keeps them glued to the game action. Who knows, they may actually watch a game on TV later in the season or tell their buddies at school: “Yeah, Sidney Crosby scored a hat trick last night. It’s because of me.” You telling me that a kid wouldn’t love this?

2) Players REALLY out in the community
I think the only time I have seen players out in the community are in the bar districts after games. They are either patrons or “celebrity bartenders.” Whatever. NHL players need to be in places where families are:
· At malls providing tutorials either inside or in the parking lot (obvious sponsorship opportunities)
· Bagging groceries at local supermarkets, telling people when the next home games are and passing out sales collateral, and/or accepting tips for charity
· Each player should sponsor his own Mighty Mites team of young hockey players; so that 18-24 teams are created, teaching youngsters about the sport while aligning them with local players; these teams could play each other during the intermissions of each and every home game (always a crowd favorite)

3) Touch glass
Who sits “on the glass” at most hockey games? Drunk corporate yahoos. Send them back one row and let the kids bang on the glass and cheer on their favorite players. Not only will this eliminate vulgar heckling between obnoxious fans and pissed off players, but it will foster a closer bond of the sport with these young fans. Every third seat must be occupied by a kid 15 and under. Mom and Dad can tag along as well.

“Anyone else would have left you by now, but I'm sticking with you. And if I have to ride your ass like Zorro, you're gonna show me the money.”

A sports league NEVER gets an opportunity to rebuild itself, re-establish itself and re-vitalize itself the way the NHL can in the coming days, weeks and months leading up to the new season’s start on October 5. I even like the new, sleek brand the league unveiled today.

If the NHL continues this forward thinking, I won’t be the only one in the stands voicing (very, very loudly) my approval.

“Nothing is Over Until We Decide It Is! Was It Over When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor?”

By Kurt Hunzeker (with some copy points provided by the movie Animal House)

That aspiring quote comes from a future senator…as the final credits to Animal House suggest. (Senator) John “Bluto” Blutarsky spoke this memorable line to try to rally his Delta brothers to fight back against Dean Wormer and the boys from Alpha house.

But this quote could easily serve as the basis for Marquette University’s ill-conceived nickname switch this summer. Without addressing the student body or key alumni, Marquette’s top decision-makers wanted a new moniker for the entire university.

A switch from “Warriors” to “Golden Eagles” was necessitated when the Jesuit institution found it hard to have a name referring to physical and lethal attackers associated with a private, Christian school. The “Golden Eagles” name never caught on in just about every facet of the Marquette community.

So the university decided to spend thousands of dollars to create a new brand, a new name and a new era for Marquette…except they forgot to tell anyone else.

When the school forced the nickname “Gold” on the unsuspecting Marquette public, backlash could not come fast enough. With the outcry so strong, so pointed and in such large numbers, from students to members of the athletics department to elected community officials, the school had to backpedal and backpedal fast to cushion the blow of this public relations fiasco.

To make a long story short, the “Gold” was scrapped and Marquette’s voting public decided that the “Golden Eagles” was far better than anything the close-knit early selectors could come up with.

It could be that this lesson on crisis management, wasted resources and funds and horrid research helped the owners of the expansion New York-Penn League State College (PA) franchise to transfer the power of naming the team to its prospective fans. (The same ownership group controls the Eastern League’s Altoona Curve.)

The new Minor League Baseball club began its “name the team” contest by accepting submissions from fans in the State College and Centre County communities. Seven popular submissions moved on to a semi-final round of voting, again open to the public, whose collective voice would determine three finalists.

As fast as Black Bears, Copperheads, Miners, Mountain Bats, Ridge Riders, Sliders and Stags became popular, they were “dropped like 3rd period French” (Ocean’s 11).

Instead of forcing one of those names down their fans’ throats, State College’s owners conducted focus groups, town hall-type meetings and one-on-one conversations to see what the local area’s residents rally around, believe in and hold dear. The passion, thoughts and suggestions from these interactions paved the way for the club to not only announce a new set of finalists, but to create categories representative of life in State College/Centre County, and nicknames that reflect those groups: farming, fishing, iron-making, Penn State University and wildlife.

Borrowing from the team’s press release, here are the nickname finalists’ that correspond to each aforementioned category (in case you missed it):

ANGLERS – Representing the fishing category, an angler is another name for a fisherman who uses a hook and line. Centre County is blessed with 37 different trout streams, meaning many residents can already call themselves “anglers.”

COALYS – The name Coalys represents a tale from the early days of Penn State University. Coaly was the name of a legendary mule that helped haul materials in the construction of Old Main and other campus buildings in the mid- and late-1800s. “Old Coaly” became such a favorite of students that he served as the informal university mascot before the adoption of the Nittany Lion in 1904. So great was the University's affection for Old Coaly that after his death in 1893, his skeleton was preserved and is currently on display inside the HUB-Robeson Center on the Penn State campus.

FURNACE – From the rich history of iron production in Centre County comes the name Furnace. The borough of State College is located on land originally part of the land holdings of a community named Centre Furnace, which was established in 1791 by Revolutionary War veterans John Patton and Samuel Miles in an area rich with iron ore.

HAYMAKERS – As a nod to the rich agricultural history of Centre County – and Penn State University itself – comes the name Haymakers, referring to farmers who make hay for the purpose of feeding their livestock. Interestingly, Penn State University was established in 1855 by the Pennsylvania Agricultural Society as a school for farmers to learn improved methods to grow crops.

SPIKES – Representing the wildlife category is the name Spikes, referring to the un-branched antler of a young male deer. The name signifies the popularity of deer hunting in Centre County, while also serving as a metaphor for a young minor leaguer who may or may not develop into a major leaguer, just as a young deer may or may not develop a full set of antlers. Spikes also have a railroad connotation, which links it to the Altoona Curve, whose secondary logo includes a railroad spike through a baseball.

State College followed the chain of events I outlined in Sparts Marketing’s first column, and that is:

A) Drive you the fan to follow the team, which then leads you to
B) Buy tickets for the upcoming game so you can be around others who like the team, which then leads you to
C) Buy merchandise and apparel that lets you tell others that you associate with said team, which then leads to
D) A stadium full of logo-ed fans, buying hot dogs, sodas, beers and that ever popular $300 retro jersey, which then leads teams to
E) Design and unveil commemorative logos (anniversary, retro, turn-ahead-the-clock, alternate, yada yada yada) to make more money due to
F) Everyone just having to buy ANYTHING with that logo on it, because it's a collectible, which then leads to....

Here’s hoping future name-changers follow the State College example and not the Marquette fiasco.