For many teams simply selling seats at their respective stadium is difficult. Many turn to (as most companies do) to the world of advertising. Now I may be a little hyper-critical in this realm because I have worked for an Ad Agency and I think what I created there was pretty darn good. Or perhaps we should first look at the teams that did not come up with slogans: The Angels, Astros, Athletics, Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Indians, Padres, Phillies, Rays and White Sox. I’m sure we can come up with some good ones for those teams, but wait, most of them finished last season above or around .500. Perhaps you don’t need a catchy slogan if your team isn’t TERRIBLE? It’s just a thought….
The Good:
Boston Red Sox - “2007 World Series Champions”
Colorado Rockies - “2007 National League Champions”
New York Yankees - “All-Star Summer”
New York Mets - “Last Season at Shea”
Cincinnatti Reds - “C You There”: Probably the best one from a creative stand point. Although if for some reason a person didn’t know the Reds play in Cincinnati (which is possible) they would be confused. But I think for most of America, the message will be understood.
The Bad: San Francisco Giants - “All Out, All Season”: Probably not the best choice of words for a team in the Bay Area (something about the San Francisco area brings people “out”) and yes, we understand that you have Aaron Rowand on your team, and yes, he did run face first into a wall last season. But that’s not going to change the fact that the best hitter on your team (for the last 2 decades) is now gone. Perhaps the slogan should have been “All Rookies, All Season”.
Kansas City Royals - “New. Blue. Tradition”: Now if you separate these phrases (as the periods do) you get one message. If you ignore the periods you get something different. Regardless, you get nothing, because it doesn’t matter how many NEW players are on the team, it won’t help them make the playoffs (or even reach .400). Yes the team is Blue, thanks for pointing that out (and no we’re not referring to just their jerseys) and there certainly is a tradition going right now of owning last place in Major Leagues. Perhaps head butting center fielder Jose Guillen will help them to a new tradition of assaulting umpires that call him out.
Atlanta Braves - “Welcome to the BIGS”: Certainly an appropriate slogan for this team as they always seem to be the ones with the deepest farm system. However, the team has been pretty bad as of late (didn’t make the playoffs again) so maybe this is a warning to all Braves fans that they are going to see minor league studs in their first major league season. That sounds great, except that a minor league game costs $8 on the 3rd base line, while the Majors costs $80.
Florida Marlins - “You Gotta Be Here”: Aside from the obvious grammatical errors, I hear they’re going to play “HELP” right after the National Anthem before every game. Perhaps the original slogan was: “You Gotta Be Here, Otherwise We’re Going To Get Sold To Another City”. Seriously, with arguably the WORST attendance in baseball, I’m surprised their slogan wasn’t “Watch us, or lose us”.
What Were You Thinking?:
Seattle Mariners - “Mojo’-Risin”: Not Mojo Rising, but the slang Mojo Risin’ for the grunge folks of Seattle. This Doors rip off, also stands as an anagram for Jim Morrison (Try rearranging Mr. Mojo Risin, you’ll be impressed). The best part about this, the song was taken from the song “LA Woman”. Which would be great if you were the Dodgers (or perhaps the “Angeles of That City That’s Near Los Angeles But Not Really). Whoever came up with this song was likely in a “Purple Haze”.
Detroit Tigers - “Whose Your Tiger”: If I had my choice? Tiger Woods, hands down. Perhaps Tony the Tiger would be a close second, followed by “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor. This might have a been a good idea if it wasn’t a team with an animal mascot, oh wait, now that I think about it, nothing would have really worked.
Minnesota Twins - “This Is Your State, This Is Your Team”: What? Ok, sure we realize that there is only one team in the entire state of Minnesota, but do you REALLY think that someone who isn’t within driving distance of the team is going to care? The people of Minnesota don’t care, case in point, they elected Jesse “The Body” Ventura as their governor. I’d love to hear the average person in Minnesota (even one that likes the Twins) name their starting lineup! Because you can’t.
Texas Rangers - “You Could Use Some Baseball”: You’re darn right we could, especially after Tony Romo BLEW another playoff game after spending a week in Cabo with Jessica Simpson. With Dirk Nowitzki out for the season and no one liking Hockey, SOMETHING needs to save the folks from Dallas from committing mass suicide. Fortunately the marketing staff omitted one word from that slogan “good”. Had they added that, this would have been the WORST slogan of the bunch. Instead it settles for pretty bad.
Baltimore Orioles - “This Is Birdland”: I can’t begin to tell you how hard I laughed after reading that, you have no idea. Typically a phrase like that works for the San Jose Sharks “This is Shark Territory”, but this is Bird Land sounds like some sort of sleazy amusement park where I can see pigeons painted different colors to look like Sun Conures and where I can see a sea gull with mask on to look like a white parrot. Just like the team, there’s “Nothing to see here”. I feel terrible too, because I hate beating a team when they’re down (and believe me, they are). But there is nothing even remotely intelligent about this slogan.
The Worst:
Pittsburgh Pirates - “Let’s Go Bucs”: The stupidity of this one should hopefully be completely obvious to everyone. Go Bucs? Are we in Tampa Bay? Are we all of a sudden a football team now? I know that a Buccaneer is loosely related to a Pirate, but come on people, seriously? The sheer ineptitude of this decision makes me extremely concerned for the Pirates as an organization (especially moving forward). To think that this team had the good sense to draft a 5-tool stud like Barry Bonds back before his steroid days, now refers to their team as a mediocre team from the South division of the NFC is certainly headed in the wrong direction (but then again I drank the kool-aid last year on Jason Bay and look what he got me, a sub .230 average). But looking on the bright side, this is probably the only award their team will receive all season!!
Pittsburgh also had that horribly stupid football mascot… I fear for the city.
jason
March 28th, 2008
first of all, you’re an ass. if you were even something close to a writer, you would have known the Pirates have been nicknamed the Bucs LONG before Tampa Bay had the Bucs in the NFL. so-called wannabe writers like you make the rest of the world laugh at your stupid, arrogant, snide, know it all, comments.
bucs fan
August 6th, 2008
It’s rare to find someone in MN that doesn’t know the starting line up…..
YEp
August 7th, 2008