By Nate Sanchez
Senior Sports Writer
California State University, Bakersfield revealed its latest marketing campaign last week.
The campaign will center around the slogan “We’re all ’Runners.” They’re starting a Kids Club presented by McDonald’s and reduced prices for season and children’s tickets. They gave us a new hashtag to use on social media: #ALLRUNNERS.
“We want the community to be emotionally attached to our product, we want them to feel included in what our student-athletes are accomplishing,” Interim Athletics Director Kenneth “Ziggy” Siegfried said to gorunners.com. “So yes, we’re all ‘Runners and we want people to feel that if they live here, they’re Roadrunners at heart.”
I want to make it very clear that I’ve enjoyed covering Roadrunner athletics for the past two years. It’s given me experience as a journalist and a source of entertainment and camaraderie with the students who choose to attend games.
In spite of this, I have to disagree with some aspects of this new campaign.
In the quote above, Siegfried starts off with the Athletic Department’s desire for the surrounding community to be “emotionally attached” to the triumphs and defeats of Bakersfield’s student-athletes. Unfortunately, students apparently can’t even get emotionally attached to the Roadrunners.
Men’s soccer (9-9-2) placed second in the Western Athletic Conference in their first year and led the conference in shutouts with five. The Runners consistently placed in the conference’s top 10 scoring and defensive categories, but an average of only 341 people went to their games last season.
Tyonna Outland and Melissa Sweat were named to All-Conference teams in women’s basketball (19-12), but only attracted an average of 278 fans per game. Women’s volleyball was a win away from going on the NCAA tournament, but only got 221 fans per game. The Icardo Center’s capacity is 3,800 people.
The unfortunate fact of this whole matter is that only three percent of our student population cares about the most successful teams on campus. How is a new hashtag going to help change that?
Another thing about this new strategy is the renovation of the blue court. According to gorunners.com, a New Jersey-based company called Phoenix Design Works was “instrumental in designing all the new marks for this campaign.”
Why not do the whole thing in-house? I’m positive there are talented local artists and students who would appreciate the honor of redesigning their school’s basketball court. I think it would be easier for the community to be emotionally attached to CSUB athletics if one of our own were to help in the design. It would have been a lot cheaper too.
Since its debut in 2011, the blue court has either been the source of school pride or apprehensive aversion. In 2012, BleacherReport.com ranked CSUB’s blue court the second-ugliest court in college basketball behind Oregon’s weird forest camouflage court. You can find that countdown here.
Gorunners.com also says that “the blue court was the first of its kind in intercollegiate athletics and still remains the only primary-blue playing surface in the nation.” It’s not. Boise State’s solid-color field was installed in 1986 and is, you guessed it; blue.
The last part of this whole thing is the hand symbol. To do it, just bring your index finger to touch your thumb and raise your remaining three fingers. It looks more like a gang sign than a roadrunner. Additionally, I highly doubt that student-athletes want to salute during the post-game alma mater following a loss. I’ve seen their faces while they do it. The look is one of apathy.
It’s great that CSUB is trying to broaden its fanbase and making athletics more accessible to everyone with lower ticket prices. But the other aspects of this new campaign seem a little off. I’m not a fan of outsourcing the honor of redesigning the Icardo Center’s court or the unnecessary hand symbols.
So how would I fix all of this? I’ll tell you next week.
