Majoring in the minor leagues
Marketing firm crafts names, mascots that are a big hit for teams’ merchandise sales
One of the hottest commodities in the minor leagues right now isn’t a fireballing pitcher or a phenom slugger. Instead, a garbage-can-flying raccoon astronaut named Sprocket has captivated baseball’s lower levels.
Sprocket is the mascot for the Rocket City Trash Pandas, the Class AA affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels. And since the fall of 2018, when the team name and Sprocket were unveiled, he has helped the club in Madison, Alabama, pull in more than $4 million in merchandise sales.
Even in a sport with climbing merchandise sales, the Trash Pandas’ revenue is a staggering sum for a single team. That the total was largely achieved before the team played a regular-season game makes it almost dumbfounding.
The Trash Pandas finally took the field this spring after the coronavirus pandemic canceled the 2020 season for all minor league teams. Rocket City merchandise continues to fly off the shelves, the team said.
“Since we started playing home games, we haven’t been able to keep up with the demand of our online orders and having stock in the team store,” said Lindsey Knupp, the team’s vice president for marketing, promotions and entertainment.
Success like this is nothing new for Brandiose, the sports marketing company behind the team’s merchandise boom. The Trash Pandas follow a game plan used by teams like the Amarillo Sod Poodles and the El Paso Chihuahuas, both in Texas, and the Hartford Yard Goats in Connecticut.
Brandiose, which is based in San Diego, began when its founders, Jason Klein and Casey White, designed their high school’s mascot. That led to more high school logo work and to the pair eventually working out of their college dorm room. At the suggestion of a licensing colleague, they turned their hobby into a business.
“We mailed letters to 150 minor league baseball teams offering our services,” Klein said. “We heard back from one.”
That team, the Class AA West Tenn Diamond Jaxx (later renamed the Jackson Generals), paved the way for Klein and White to become a dominant force in minor league branding, with dozens of teams now sporting logos designed by the company.
Part of the company’s process is working closely with the team and community to come up with the right mascot and team name. Even if the proposals are unique, there’s a ground-level approach that involves multiple visits to the community as well as meetings with team officials, civic leaders and fans..
That approach doesn’t guarantee an immediate warm reception from fans, though. Some in Alabama were slow to embrace the Trash Pandas name. “People didn’t want their team to be associated with trash,” Knupp said.
But, she added, the image of a savvy raccoon with a self-assembled rocket worked its magic on fans in the Huntsville-Madison area, which has long been a major hub of the space industry. The U.S. Space and Rocket Center and Space Camp are less than 6 miles up the road from the Trash Pandas’ stadium.
White says it’s fun to see fans get angry when the team name is announced only to have those same fans fall in love with the logo. “It’s a zinger,” he said, “like a redemption arc for a character in a movie.”