UConn as a "brand" not quite there

[Flipside]

Three things:

1) I'm actually in that video

Do we know each other? ... I am Fuqua 2000

 

[Kitaman]

Yeah we've got a little more way to go :

 

[ctchamps]

Success plus exposure builds followers.

Followers are important. They buy merchandise. They are part of the equation for the media in contract deliberation.

It's interesting but not unexpected that UConn women's bb has more followers than the mens bb programs of UNC, Kentucky, Kansas and UConn. When I first moved to North Carolina ten years ago multiple people approached me when I wore UConn gear and started talking about the UConn women. Several of their daughters were fans.

Currently many of the UConn mens basketball fans are band wagon fans. There are no band wagon fans rooting for the UConn football team. They are the "real" diehard (masochistic) type of fans.

The UConn mens bb program is gaining more follower due to its success. But the media situation makes it more difficult for followers to find games. No doubt ESPN made Duke. It will be harder in the current system for any program to get that type of exposure. Caitlin Clark was a phenom that tapped into the human psyche which wants to say it witnessed her achievements. Similar to what happened with Tiger Woods. I doubt Iowa is getting the same attention it got the past two years.

 

[ctchamps]

Plenty of Big 10, SEC, Big 12 schools have more social media followers than we do. It doesn’t really mean anything. Does anyone think that Tennessee basketball is a bigger brand than UConn because they have twice as many followers on twitter? Of course not. Most of these schools (except Duke) have 2x-4x the amount of alumni AND state population as UConn/Connecticut. Half of our state population is in Fairfield County and they’re NYC transplants who send their kids to elite private colleges in the northeast. Our fanbase is smaller than most, but our brand is clearly national. We also didn’t have the luxury of being a huge brand until Calhoun got things ripping in the 90s. People in the 80s thought UConn was in Canada.

Fairfield County is the county with the largest population but only a little over a quarter of the population. And I would think that cities like Danbury, Bridgeport and Stamford which make up almost half of Fairfield's population have significant populations that are UConn fans.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Duke, with their IQ, has done a pretty amazing job of creating a "culture" around their brand. Fans/players/athletes/humans love culture. They have a lot going their way - they have Cameron, a historic coach, NBA alumni galore and then all these little rituals they brand the heck out of, like the Cameron Crazies, that baby (as weird as it is), the Brotherhood, etc. They get these generational college talents like Flagg & Zion that just look different.

It doesn't hurt that they have the name of Duke, a cool mascot and are an elite academic institution.

Does make you wonder if there is some opportunity at Uconn, especially with Hurley at the helm, to add some colorful facets to the Uconn experience. Brotherhood = Wolfpack. Gampel Goons. Can't be an obvious copy and has to come from the students. As awesome as he is, not sure GenZ is connecting with a man on a oxygen tank in the rafters going through his U-C-O-N-N.

I really thought they were finished after these two wiped them out in the orange juice commodities market.

 

[temery]

It is physically impossible for most people to lick their own elbow.

 

[nomar]

Three things:

1) I'm actually in that video
2) The UNC game is by far the hypest game of the year there. it's not even close. Other games are fun, but don't come close to that level of insanity....except maybe if the Big10-ACC challenge, or whatever the ACC is paired with this year results in a home game for duke....The ACC is terrible, so there isn't much in the name of big games in cameron outside UNC these days.
3) every time we touch kind of rose in prominence since 2010, and is kind of the team theme song. the other timeouts usually don't get as much excitement as that one.

I will say, the pregame rundown with the national anthem, "all we do is win" and "every time we touch" is a pretty good ramp up to the game.

Uconn's got their own stuff, though. Standing through the first bucket, "U-C-O-N-N' at timeouts, uconn huskies call and response....and Duke has no good chants that actually get the crowd engaged like that...especially at big neutral areans in the way huskies fans do.

Standing through the first bucket...

I went to Cameron* once in college and the student section, and much of the crowd, didn't sit the entire game. It honestly makes me chuckle every time points to the "stand until the 1st bucket" thing. I think it's actually embarrassing. People who are watching on TV see everybody in the stands sit down at once just because UConn made a layup.

*To be clear, I hate Duke. They are on my Mt. Rushmore of hated teams (with the Yankees, Lakers and Cowboys).

 

[cullaville]

Plenty of Big 10, SEC, Big 12 schools have more social media followers than we do. It doesn’t really mean anything. Does anyone think that Tennessee basketball is a bigger brand than UConn because they have twice as many followers on twitter? Of course not. Most of these schools (except Duke) have 2x-4x the amount of alumni AND state population as UConn/Connecticut. Half of our state population is in Fairfield County and they’re NYC transplants who send their kids to elite private colleges in the northeast. Our fanbase is smaller than most, but our brand is clearly national. We also didn’t have the luxury of being a huge brand until Calhoun got things ripping in the 90s. People in the 80s thought UConn was in Canada.

Agree with all you said about except the Fairfield County comments. I am a lifelong Fairfield County resident and UCONN grad. One of my kids also went to UCONN and the other went another New England state school to play a sport.

There are plenty of UCONN grads from Fairfield County with children also attending UCONN.

 

[Flipside]

I really thought they were finished after these two wiped them out in the orange juice commodities market.

 

[cwh20]

I went to Cameron* once in college and the student section, and much of the crowd, didn't sit the entire game.

They do show well but I always wonder, are the Cameron Crazies really authentic? I’m guessing probably most are but are some just there for the cachet of being there because “it’s super cool”? They also seem to love the performance aspect.

Shavlik Randolph! [clap clap clap clap clap]. haha!

 

[Lafayette]

They do show well but I always wonder, are the Cameron Crazies really authentic? I’m guessing probably most are but are some just there for the cachet of being there because “it’s super cool”? They also seem to love the performance aspect.

Shavlik Randolph! [clap clap clap clap clap]. haha!

Not sure what the authentic test was, but I was at that Elite 8 game in Dallas they lost to NC State.

They did not travel well...sort of like fruit. Most Duke fans were blue duke emblem long sleeve polo types.

Thing is I tend to think of Duke like I think of Syracuse under Boheim: They only schedule hard games at home. Neutral is ok, but never away.

 

[uh-no]

They do show well but I always wonder, are the Cameron Crazies really authentic? I’m guessing probably most are but are some just there for the cachet of being there because “it’s super cool”? They also seem to love the performance aspect.

Shavlik Randolph! [clap clap clap clap clap]. haha!

It's a mix of both.

It's important to know that despite the assertions that the students "always turn out," they sell the expected unused parts of the student section for almost every game....and only ever run out of space for the carolina game (though even that is not a sure thing anymore). The section holds 1600 people out of a population of 6700, so it's about 25% of the student population, so filling it would be a tall task at that kind of institution regardless. I assume the student section at gampel is a smaller fraction of the undergrad population?

 

[Excalibur]

My phone autocorrects to “ducking” a lot. How many cusses do I have to make!?

Your heart just isn’t in it. My phone corrects other words into profanity at this point. It knows me.

 

[Jaydumo20]

Plenty of Big 10, SEC, Big 12 schools have more social media followers than we do. It doesn’t really mean anything. Does anyone think that Tennessee basketball is a bigger brand than UConn because they have twice as many followers on twitter? Of course not. Most of these schools (except Duke) have 2x-4x the amount of alumni AND state population as UConn/Connecticut. Half of our state population is in Fairfield County and they’re NYC transplants who send their kids to elite private colleges in the northeast. Our fanbase is smaller than most, but our brand is clearly national. We also didn’t have the luxury of being a huge brand until Calhoun got things ripping in the 90s. People in the 80s thought UConn was in Canada.

I agree with this. I dont think branding means as much as people think it does. Instagram followers are an empty statistic most of the time. There are more factors than that. Consider how many of our biggest fans are on social media? You think Chief is racking up IG followers?

Coincidentally, me, my dad, my mom, my sister, her husband, their 10 year old, many of my friends (im 45) are all UConn die hards who don't have a social media account to their name, or have opted out years ago.

 

[Palatine]

Much like the endowment UConn did not pay attention to branding until relatively recently. Both Calhoun and Edsall only paid attention to the media when they had to.

UConn is now playing catch up in marathon after giving the competitors a ten mile start. Watch a "UConn" commercial during a basketball game. They are always generic. You could put the name of any school on the spot and it would work. The key to branding is having a strong point of differentiation, or as they said in the1950s, a USP -- a unique selling proposition. I watched for years as the university demonstrated they actually don't know the first thing about marketing.

 

[uconngb]

Duke / St John's insider cheer sheet from 2000 @ Cameron when SJ upset Duke

... notice the respect for St John's and Erick Barkley?



View attachment 112414

The fact that they have a “cheer sheet” tells you all you need to know about Dook

 

[Flipside]

Standing through the first bucket...

I went to Cameron* once in college and the student section, and much of the crowd, didn't sit the entire game. It honestly makes me chuckle every time points to the "stand until the 1st bucket" thing. I think it's actually embarrassing. People who are watching on TV see everybody in the stands sit down at once just because UConn made a layup.

*To be clear, I hate Duke. They are on my Mt. Rushmore of hated teams (with the Yankees, Lakers and Cowboys).

There is no place to sit in the student section ... packed in there like a Diddy-Epstein party

 

[Flipside]

 

[FightOnCT]

Much like the endowment UConn did not pay attention to branding until relatively recently. Both Calhoun and Edsall only paid attention to the media when they had to.

UConn is now playing catch up in marathon after giving the competitors a ten mile start. Watch a "UConn" commercial during a basketball game. They are always generic. You could put the name of any school on the spot and it would work. The key to branding is having a strong point of differentiation, or as they said in the1950s, a USP -- a unique selling proposition. I watched for years as the university demonstrated they actually don't know the first thing about marketing.

In defense, the school has grown immensely since the 90s when it was just regional. Most of the big brands have been long well-established. Duke has a massive NBA following that attributes to its brand.

And that’s not to mention New England as a region has always just suffered from oversaturation of prominent universities. There isn’t that same struggle for dominance in Michigan or Ohio as opposed to Connecticut or Massachusetts for example.

It can always be better but I think we’re in a good spot considering where we were 30 years ago. An average joe on the street will immediately recognize us for basketball at this point. We’ve got merch collabs with Drake, and the Super Bowl Halftime special guest has a song titled Kemba Walker. I could go on.

 

[Flipside]

... It can always be better but I think we’re in a good spot considering where we were 30 years ago. An average joe on the street will immediately recognize us for basketball at this point. We’ve got merch collabs with Drake, and the Super Bowl Halftime special guest has a song titled Kemba Walker. I could go on.

This right here!

 

[Flipside]

The fact that they have a “cheer sheet” tells you all you need to know about Dook

Yep, but that's not all you need to know, or think you might know, imo and experience

 

[Kolumbo]

speaking of brand, i thought there was a flaw with the Husky Logo. It always appears smaller than other schools' logos. I figured it was because of the ears. The ears point up taking up vertical space so I thought the logo needed to be made smaller in order to fit into various media.

This may not be the case. I copied the logo banner from the Big East page. As you can see, the UConn logo does in fact appear to be smaller than space would allow while the DePaul and SJU logos are very large, almost too large for the space allowed. It looks really out of whack next to the Butler logo. I don't know why this is but this is what keeps me awake at night.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

Sorry, not buying this Duke thing. Let's get honest here, a big portion of that following on IG for Duke are Duke bandwagon fans. Been that way for years. Some peope are Duke fans and don't even know there history, wins, etc. They just want to everyone to know they are a Duke fan.

Some fans will never admit it, but they are closet Duke fans, even though they have a very strong, successful program with multiple titles.

Bandwagon fans’ money is still green. It’s a business.

 

[Flipside]

cc: from the Kentucky NIL thread

D'Amelio Huskies Collective

D'Amelio Huskies takes a unique approach to athlete development. We specifically help our athletes to develop as young men and women on and off the playing surface. Our talented staff provide elite service from contract negotiation to social media management.

dameliohuskies.com

The D'Amelio's Father-Daughter Dance

Marc D'Amelio '91 (CLAS) — who with daughters Charli and Dixie is a social media and reality TV star — talks parenting, TikTok, bleeding blue, and Beavis and Butthead.

magazine.uconn.edu

Father-Daughter Dance
Marc D'Amelio '91 (CLAS) — who with daughters Charli and Dixie is a social media and reality TV star — talks parenting, TikTok, bleeding blue, and Beavis and Butthead.

By Kim Krieger
Photo by Peter Morenus

Marc D'Amelio '91 (CLAS) describes himself as a man without a lot of hobbies. But he has helped his daughters, Dixie, 21, and Charli, 18, rise to TikTok stardom, moved cross-country, partnered with Abercrombie & Fitch on a new line of branded apparel, become a reality TV star, and won Best New Unscripted TV Series at the MTV Movie Awards for "The D'Amelio Show," all in just three years during a pandemic. And while he may have moved to Hollywood, D'Amelio still has hometown and Husky pride.

The native Norwalker's next project, branded D'Amelio Huskies Collective, was created to help UConn student-athletes develop and control their own name, image, and likeness. We checked in with him while he was back home in Norwalk in July.

You are known as a true-blue Husky.

When I went there, UConn was an underdog — it was a school that was affordable. I transferred from community college and it's almost as if I grew with the school. I remember telling my grandmother I was going to UConn, and she thought I was going to Canada! And now when you say UConn, there's not a person who follows colleges who doesn't know where it is.

And my love of the City of Norwalk is so important to me, for similar reasons. We're surrounded by all these affluent towns, and sometimes the schools get a bad rap. When we had the opportunity to move to Westport or Darien, we came back here to Norwalk. I'm loyal in that way. And that's the same way I feel about UConn. If I can create a buzz about the University of Connecticut, if I can use my platform to do that, I'll do it. I do think sometimes people who follow me for Dixie and Charli information go, "Aw, he's talking about the University of Connecticut again!"

I don't know what it is. It's just that time of your life when you're figuring things out and learning how to be on your own and navigating through life, and UConn helped me do that. I didn't meet my wife at UConn, but my roommate from college ended up running World Gyms in NYC, and my wife was a personal trainer there. If I didn't go to UConn, I would never have met my wife!

Where did you spend most of your time at UConn?

I transferred up there and lived in Towers and joined Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. And I DJ'ed at Huskies.

What kind of music did you play?

R&B and hip-hop. It happened as kind of a fluke. It was one of those long weekends where everyone came back on Sunday. The manager said, "We have such a crowd, I wish we had some music," and I said, "This kid has all these records, I can go grab 'em." And then we performed, and the place went wild. The manager said, "Do you want to work here?" And I ended up becoming the Thursday night DJ for two years.

 

[pj]

There are no band wagon fans rooting for the UConn football team. They are the "real" diehard (masochistic) type of fans.

I'm a fair weather UConn football fan. When they cancel seasons I lose interest.