[size=4]uncc.edu[/size]
I’ve said it for almost 20 years now. If we are going to half-ass the Charlotte branding we were better off owning the UNCC name. Acronyms can be successful, especially in today’s age of social media.
We used 24 carat gold on these jerseys. What are we, made of money? These are THE jerseys. AWAY JERSEYS YOU ASK?!? This guy with away jerseys.
Well I’m glad SOMEBODY else gets it.
Thank you
I graduated from UNCC, I’ve never had a problem with that name
Charlotte > UNCC >>>> UNC Charlotte is how I see it. The multiple names approach is so annoying. One school, one brand, whatever it is.
I don’t really see why the university has to have the same name as the sports teams. So many other universities and colleges do this, I can think of several off the top of my head: NC State, Virginia tech, Cal, Umass, Uconn, Penn St., Penn, Ole Miss.
In fact almost all the teams that go by state names are shortening the full title in a similar way: Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina, etc. all are really the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Texas-Austin, and the University of North Carolina-Cheats.
I’d argue that the real problem is that our athletics have not done enough to distinguish themselves, but there are plenty of other less well-known schools that do this too, and don’t seem to have a huge problem with the naming: Albany, Cal Poly, Santa Clara, Charleston, Chattanooga, etc. Why does it seem so much worse to get people to use Charlotte for athletics and UNCC for the university? Is our situation sort of unique due to the domination of local media by cheats, the colleges nearby that still hold on to the “UNC” in their name, or something else?
This times one thousand.
I’m 100% behind a name change and wish it would happen tomorrow… but I’m growing increasingly sick and tired of this middle ground that some are calling a “baby step” towards the name change.
It’s not a step in any direction, and it is currently holding us back.
The arguments against the “UNCC” moniker were valid once, but football changes everything.
We are now participating in the single most visible branding vehicle that the vast majority of universities can possibly have, and we are doing so in such a way that our University doesn’t directly receive that visibility. We are literally leaving it up to viewers who stumble upon our games on TV to google “Charlotte 49ers” to find what university the team they are watching represents. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard google search results used as a rebuttal to my views on this topic.
Guys… if your branding methods force your targets to use google just to identify you, you’re doing it wrong.
We need to fix this, and soon. I’d much prefer the University to join the Athletic Dept on this… but I doubt it will happen any time soon. In the meantime, I’d rather have a recognizable brand that we may not like as much than have two brands that don’t link up together.
[quote=“9erken, post:8, topic:29875”]I don’t really see why the university has to have the same name as the sports teams. So many other universities and colleges do this, I can think of several off the top of my head: NC State, Virginia tech, Cal, Umass, Uconn, Penn St., Penn, Ole Miss.
In fact almost all the teams that go by state names are shortening the full title in a similar way: Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina, etc. all are really the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Texas-Austin, and the University of North Carolina-Cheats.
I’d argue that the real problem is that our athletics have not done enough to distinguish themselves, but there are plenty of other less well-known schools that do this too, and don’t seem to have a huge problem with the naming: Albany, Cal Poly, Santa Clara, Charleston, Chattanooga, etc. Why does it seem so much worse to get people to use Charlotte for athletics and UNCC for the university? Is our situation sort of unique due to the domination of local media by cheats, the colleges nearby that still hold on to the “UNC” in their name, or something else?[/quote]
This is an apples-to-oranges comparison.
NC State, Virginia Tech, Cal, UMass, UConn, Penn State, Ole Miss; Texas, Wisconsin, UNC all have one thing in common that we do not: they have a unified brand. NC State refers to the campus, the college, the sports, everything. Aside from the most official of capacities (such as the seal on the diplomas) nobody refers to any aspect of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University as anything other than Virginia Tech. The schools that you have listed have successfully built a cohesive brand that applies to everything that falls under that school’s umbrella.
We, on the other hand, do not do that. We have an athletic department that says “We’re Charlotte. Just Charlotte. We don’t even have the word “University” in our name!” At the same time, the rest of the campus insists that we are “The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. UNC Charlotte is fine too. But not just ‘Charlotte.’ That’s not okay.”
Of all of the universities that you’ve listed, I think UAlbany does the best job of what we could be doing by referring to themselves as the University at Albany in all aspects of their branding. They stand on their own without alienating themselves from their SUNY affiliation.
Also, I’m not sure what you mean by Charleston or Chattanooga. College of Charleston is the College of Charleston. They have a singular name, and they don’t have to brand themselves otherwise. Chattanooga, on the other hand, seems to be in the same boat that we are: They call themselves Chattanooga, but I see them referred to as UTC or UT-Chattanooga just as often as we are referred to by a name we don’t like.
Agreed. They’re all shortened/acronyms for the actual name of the school. No one wants to be called the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for sports. So if we’re going to shorten it, then I prefer Charlotte.
[quote=“ZombieLew, post:9, topic:29875”]Guys… if your branding methods force your targets to use google just to identify you, you’re doing it wrong.
We need to fix this, and soon. I’d much prefer the University to join the Athletic Dept on this… but I doubt it will happen any time soon. In the meantime, I’d rather have a recognizable brand that we may not like as much than have two brands that don’t link up together.[/quote]
Other than UNCC.edu, the school mostly uses UNC Charlotte. So whether you use Charlotte or UNCC, it’s going to be different branding.
[quote="9erken, post:8, topic:29875"]I don't really see why the university has to have the same name as the sports teams. So many other universities and colleges do this, I can think of several off the top of my head: NC State, Virginia tech, Cal, Umass, Uconn, Penn St., Penn, Ole Miss.In fact almost all the teams that go by state names are shortening the full title in a similar way: Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina, etc. all are really the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Texas-Austin, and the University of North Carolina-Cheats.
I’d argue that the real problem is that our athletics have not done enough to distinguish themselves, but there are plenty of other less well-known schools that do this too, and don’t seem to have a huge problem with the naming: Albany, Cal Poly, Santa Clara, Charleston, Chattanooga, etc. Why does it seem so much worse to get people to use Charlotte for athletics and UNCC for the university? Is our situation sort of unique due to the domination of local media by cheats, the colleges nearby that still hold on to the “UNC” in their name, or something else?[/quote]
This is an apples-to-oranges comparison.
NC State, Virginia Tech, Cal, UMass, UConn, Penn State, Ole Miss; Texas, Wisconsin, UNC all have one thing in common that we do not: they have a unified brand. NC State refers to the campus, the college, the sports, everything. Aside from the most official of capacities (such as the seal on the diplomas) nobody refers to any aspect of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University as anything other than Virginia Tech. The schools that you have listed have successfully built a cohesive brand that applies to everything that falls under that school’s umbrella.
We, on the other hand, do not do that. We have an athletic department that says “We’re Charlotte. Just Charlotte. We don’t even have the word “University” in our name!” At the same time, the rest of the campus insists that we are “The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. UNC Charlotte is fine too. But not just ‘Charlotte.’ That’s not okay.”
Of all of the universities that you’ve listed, I think UAlbany does the best job of what we could be doing by referring to themselves as the University at Albany in all aspects of their branding. They stand on their own without alienating themselves from their SUNY affiliation.
Also, I’m not sure what you mean by Charleston or Chattanooga. College of Charleston is the College of Charleston. They have a singular name, and they don’t have to brand themselves otherwise. Chattanooga, on the other hand, seems to be in the same boat that we are: They call themselves Chattanooga, but I see them referred to as UTC or UT-Chattanooga just as often as we are referred to by a name we don’t like.
Yeah, you’re probably right, particularly about Virginia Tech. They have switched to marketing that way. VPI used to be more common I think for the academic side, but not anymore.
For the others, I think it varies and depends on how official the communication is. Ole Miss is not used as much for the academic side (though it is occasionally). Wisconsin is UW or University of Wisconsin or University of Wisconsin-Madison or UW-Madison. UNCCH is similar, academic articles mostly refer to UNC-Chapel Hill, but they go by UNC elsewhere and the sports teams are mostly “North Carolina”. If their brands weren’t already strong for the separate names, I think they’d have the same issues as we do.
I included Charleston because I thought they had changed the name of their sports teams to just Charleston, but checking again it appears that’s not the case on their athletics website. Maybe they just use that on uniforms and the sports sites, but not when referring to the teams officially?
Chattanooga used to be UTC on their jerseys, and switched despite the fact they use UTC for describing the academic side of the university. But I’ll confess I don’t know much about their history of difficulty with naming, so maybe their fans have as much angst as ours over it.
[quote=“9erken, post:12, topic:29875”]
[quote=“9erken, post:8, topic:29875”]I don’t really see why the university has to have the same name as the sports teams. So many other universities and colleges do this, I can think of several off the top of my head: NC State, Virginia tech, Cal, Umass, Uconn, Penn St., Penn, Ole Miss.In fact almost all the teams that go by state names are shortening the full title in a similar way: Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina, etc. all are really the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Texas-Austin, and the University of North Carolina-Cheats.
I’d argue that the real problem is that our athletics have not done enough to distinguish themselves, but there are plenty of other less well-known schools that do this too, and don’t seem to have a huge problem with the naming: Albany, Cal Poly, Santa Clara, Charleston, Chattanooga, etc. Why does it seem so much worse to get people to use Charlotte for athletics and UNCC for the university? Is our situation sort of unique due to the domination of local media by cheats, the colleges nearby that still hold on to the “UNC” in their name, or something else?[/quote]
This is an apples-to-oranges comparison.
NC State, Virginia Tech, Cal, UMass, UConn, Penn State, Ole Miss; Texas, Wisconsin, UNC all have one thing in common that we do not: they have a unified brand. NC State refers to the campus, the college, the sports, everything. Aside from the most official of capacities (such as the seal on the diplomas) nobody refers to any aspect of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University as anything other than Virginia Tech. The schools that you have listed have successfully built a cohesive brand that applies to everything that falls under that school’s umbrella.
We, on the other hand, do not do that. We have an athletic department that says “We’re Charlotte. Just Charlotte. We don’t even have the word “University” in our name!” At the same time, the rest of the campus insists that we are “The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. UNC Charlotte is fine too. But not just ‘Charlotte.’ That’s not okay.”
Of all of the universities that you’ve listed, I think UAlbany does the best job of what we could be doing by referring to themselves as the University at Albany in all aspects of their branding. They stand on their own without alienating themselves from their SUNY affiliation.
Also, I’m not sure what you mean by Charleston or Chattanooga. College of Charleston is the College of Charleston. They have a singular name, and they don’t have to brand themselves otherwise. Chattanooga, on the other hand, seems to be in the same boat that we are: They call themselves Chattanooga, but I see them referred to as UTC or UT-Chattanooga just as often as we are referred to by a name we don’t like.
Yeah, you’re probably right, particularly about Virginia Tech. They have switched to marketing that way. VPI used to be more common I think for the academic side, but not anymore.
For the others, I think it varies and depends on how official the communication is. Ole Miss is not used as much for the academic side (though it is occasionally). Wisconsin is UW or University of Wisconsin or University of Wisconsin-Madison or UW-Madison. UNCCH is similar, academic articles mostly refer to UNC-Chapel Hill, but they go by UNC elsewhere and the sports teams are mostly “North Carolina”. If their brands weren’t already strong for the separate names, I think they’d have the same issues as we do.
I included Charleston because I thought they had changed the name of their sports teams to just Charleston, but checking again it appears that’s not the case on their athletics website. Maybe they just use that on uniforms and the sports sites, but not when referring to the teams officially?
Chattanooga used to be UTC on their jerseys, and switched despite the fact they use UTC for describing the academic side of the university. But I’ll confess I don’t know much about their history of difficulty with naming, so maybe their fans have as much angst as ours over it.[/quote]
clt says UNC CHeat is the problem. If they went by North Carolina for athletics and UNC CH for academics, no worries. But they also use UNC for both. This creates the confusion.
FWIW Ole Miss is the term for the plantation owner’s wife. The plantation owner’s daughter would be Young Miss. Ole Miss was a term of endearment used by the students to express how they felt about the university when they went off to fight for the confederacy.
Ole Miss was created when plantation owners’ sons were coming back from college as abolitionists and the plantation owning class thus felt pressure to have their own University where they could send their sons without worrying about that happening. It’s pretty creepy actually.
We need to just change the university name and that would handle everything. Well, other than winning, winning solves everything.