breakin face

-Marketing of apparel is a non-event in the grand scheme of things, we are taking not even a percentage point of the university's total revenues. With a nickname there would be a slight increase however the risk of alienating long term donors or future endowments is a far greater financial risk than maintaining our merchandise revenue at its current level. -Media: The fact a sports journalist may refer to as the Green and White instead of our divisive new nickname is not a win. In fact at this point media outlets can belittle you over a lot more than your nickname. See: http://whotv.com/2014/08/26/soundoff-whats-bugging-andy-12/ -Confusion with NDSU: We are both small division one programs. If someone in Tupelo, MS doesn't know the difference between North Dakota and North Dakota State the nicknames Bison and Rough Fighting SunStarDaks aren't going to provide any more clarity. -Process: If the university embraces being the school without a nickname who listened to its constituents there will not need to be a nickname. This is actually your most credible point because we are dealing with Academia and they are really good about stirring up controversy, however if the university comes out today and says we are not going to have a nickname, we are going to be the University of North Dakota the fan base will rally around it. -Compliance: There is zero chance we wind up with no nickname if the NCAA isn't going to be ok with it. This is a moot point. The pros of going with no nickname are: -Status Quo: We have gone without a nickname for three years and the university is in no worse place than when we had Fighting Sioux. Hockey coming off a Frozen Four appearance, football has a new regime and is building a program, volleyball andwomen's basketball both had trips to the NCAA tournament in the no nickname era. UND has a winning record vs NDSU in the no-nickname era. -Differentiation: By not having a nickname we are the only division one program who can brand its university as strong enough to stand on its own. That's a much better outcome than having a punchline for a nickname like Nodaks. Sundogs, Chanticleers, etc. -Certainty: The process will come to an end, we would have no nickname with no speculation of Fighting Sioux being replaced. There will be no cooling-off (speculation) period. There is a very large faction of our fan base who this change would scorn. Many are threatening to not renew their tickets, donate to the university, etc. I will not be one of those people if we end up without a nickname, however that base is still extremely important to the university going forward. Ralph Engelstad himself would not have built the best arena in the country in Grand Forks had we changed our nickname. Ultimately we have been without a nickname for three years and everyone fighting on this site for a nickname are still here as fans of the university. You still attend games, you still go to the message boards, I don't doubt for a second that you all truly love UND. We have proven that we will be loyal supporters with no nickname, I don't think any of us should be willing to play chicken with 30-40% of our fan base for such marginal upside.

Go on with the variety of reasons please. I'd like to know how our athletic programs will be any different than the last three years.

Also, the one item that should have zero influence in this decision is whether or not Hajdu gets ribbed by a broadcaster from San Luis Obispo or Cedar City in a mid-week research call about us not having a nickname.

Again I will ask the question how many more games would we have won had we had a nickname or the past three years? How many more people would have been at basketball games had we had a nickname? The cooling off period was idiotic because it allowed all this divisiveness to fester, however not having a nickname did not damage any of our athletic or academic programs. Volleyball and Women's Basketball both won conference titles under the no nickname banner, Baseball has had their most noteworthy seasons in a long time, and the football program has a shot of energy. The argument not having a nickname somehow hurts every sport except hockey does not hold up for me at all. However if a big donor out of the 6000 petitioned people (speculative, however if i'm 1% right that's 60 donors) decides they want to dispose their income elsewhere over this issue we lose far greater than by maintaining the status quo, and it's the non-revenue sports that will suffer because of that.

Again I will ask the question how many more games would we have won had we had a nickname or the past three years? How many more people would have been at basketball games had we had a nickname? The cooling off period was idiotic because it allowed all this divisiveness to fester, however not having a nickname did not damage any of our athletic or academic programs. Volleyball and Women's Basketball both won conference titles under the no nickname banner, Baseball has had their most noteworthy seasons in a long time, and the football program has a shot of energy. The argument not having a nickname somehow hurts every sport except hockey does not hold up for me at all. However if a big donor out of the 6000 petitioned people (speculative, however if i'm 1% right that's 60 donors) decides they want to dispose their income elsewhere over this issue we lose far greater than by maintaining the status quo, and it's the non-revenue sports that will suffer because of that.

Again I will ask the question how many more games would we have won had we had a nickname or the past three years? How many more people would have been at basketball games had we had a nickname? The cooling off period was idiotic because it allowed all this divisiveness to fester, however not having a nickname did not damage any of our athletic or academic programs. Volleyball and Women's Basketball both won conference titles under the no nickname banner, Baseball has had their most noteworthy seasons in a long time, and the football program has a shot of energy. The argument not having a nickname somehow hurts every sport except hockey does not hold up for me at all. However if a big donor out of the 6000 petitioned people (speculative, however if i'm 1% right that's 60 donors) decides they want to dispose their income elsewhere over this issue we lose far greater than by maintaining the status quo, and it's the non-revenue sports that will suffer because of that.

If no nickname ends up being the answer and the university owns it through their marketing/merchandising this issue will eventually be behind us. The argument for a nickname does not outweigh the damage that could be done by alienating potential donors regardless of whether they are a one sport fan or not. If no nickname ends up the answer and the university hmms and haws and allows nickname focus groups and committees to pop up in the future the nickname issue will always linger. The only thing that has damaged the university in the three years without a nickname is the speculation and divisiveness caused by potentially having a new nickname.

Success is what builds your brand in athletics, not your nickname.

It also is already copyrighted and has been the subject of a lawsuit once before. http://icethetics.squarespace.com/blog/2010/7/12/a-history-of-logo-larceny.html?currentPage=2

If the committee wants this to be successful they should narrow the list to Roughriders and No Name. I honestly believe Roughriders would win at this point. These two options are far and away the most popular and unifying. To the Nodaks crowd saying it is the same as no nickname is wrong. Nodaks behind North Dakota sounds really bad. There is no way to make a logo for a Nodak, and the No Nicknames still will not embrace it. How would that put the university in a different position? Sundogs has to be a joke, how that scored so high on that committee really makes me question how this crew was assembled.

I attend the majority of games, like high school athletics, live in Grand Forks, grew up in the area, and still like the name Rough Riders for UND. Now what?

No that would be worse. Roughriders, Cavalry, No Nickname would be ideal for the final vote.

North Dakota Nokotas. Do people who support that name actually think it sounds good?

Couldn't agree more, to further the middle finger analogy it is the thousands of people (potential donors if not already) pushing for no nickname who the administration would be giving the middle finger too by not even having no nickname up for consideration. There is also a group of alumni who aren't quite ready to donate yet who are being alienated in this, when their financial means improve down the road they may not be inclined to donate based off this issue. Not saying that line of thinking should be encouraged, however it is a definite possibility.

Unfortunately we are a lot closer to going down the Marquette road....

The delivery of the message is entirely different, announcing a new nickname sounds a lot more like this: North Dakota is the name of our university and unfortunately that is not a big enough brand to stand on its own. We already have a logo (interlocking) that we have used for the better part of a century, but what did that get us? If we call ourselves the Pride, Spirit, Big Green, Nodaks or Force we'll finally be able to shed our history, get a fancy new corporate logo and fit in. But don't worry it will be obscure (i mean unique) enough that we'll be the only ones with that name.

Found a glimpse into the future of the great branding opportunities we'll be looking at in 2035 by changing our name now: http://www.gomarquette.com/ http://gostanford.com/ Marquette even went as far as to type the new nickname in the upper right hand corner of their website, that's brand recognition! Also those super important domain names, it looks like Marquette and Stanford found it made more sense to market the names of their universities since they are inherently unique, not their generic force fed nicknames.

There are a lot of eyeballs on this story from a lot of angles. Your question speaks to my point, if the alumni aren't going to stop contributing and the university will stay on the growth trend it already is on despite not having a nickname why add a nickname for the sake of adding a nickname? The university had revenues of 500 million or so last year, to put the amount of effort into changing the name for $300,000 of incremental revenue (less than 1% of total revenues) and run the risk of rubbing even one big donor the wrong way makes no sense. From a public relations standpoint, Kelley could schedule a press conference and have a huge win and potentially energize more donors by saying. We heard you loud and clear, over thousands of our constituents want us to remain North Dakota, we are the flagship university in this state, "We are North Dakota".

Rallying/Unifying the fan base and finding something tolerable are two entirely different things. If this process produces four garbage results the alumni base is going to feel left out of the process. More harm can be done by forcing a square into a circle than leaving the status quo as is for now. Ultimately in the no-nickname era we have gone to an NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, appeared in a few frozen fours, saw our football program begin to turn around. Academically enrollment continues to climb, and three of the major colleges on campus are either relocating into new facilities or are being updated. It's not like the sky has fallen going by North Dakota. Why risk alienating your alumni base for the sake of adding a tolerable name?

Haha, good catch! Cavalry is a name you can build a brand around.

Unless we think we can vastly improve our current brand on both fronts (No Nickname/Interlocking logo), we should stay as is. The current list does not have more than three names where this is even plausible. It's concerning that over 1000 submitted no nickname and only 2 of 11 on this committee voted for that as an option. If they whittle this down to a handful of names it appears 'No Nickname' will not be an option and we'll be left with options that will move our brand laterally at best and backwards at worst.

No, Nodaks is brutal. Nodaks represents everything that is wrong with this process, it is a nickname nobody else has that you can't market without creating a cartoon character (see NAU rebrand). The same can be said for the vast majority of this list (Big Green, Force, Pride, Sundogs). Roughriders is a name you can build a brand around, Calvary is a brand you can build a name around. These are real things, not buzz words vetted out because they are unique.

South Dakota State came out with a fancy new logo package a few years back, is their brand any more recognized in LA, Dallas, Atlanta? How about Coastal Carolina, how many casual sports fan look at their logo and think of the Chanticleers? We are a regional school in the grand scheme of things, that's not a slight against us it is just facts. Picking a 'unique for unique sake' nickname will not differentiate us or grow our brand, it will make us look like every other directional/regional school in the country. We won't stand out, we'll just blend in.

What is the goal in this process? How can a logo for a Force, Spirit, Sundog, (insert name here) be more unifying than the interlocking logo we have used for the better part of a century? Does anyone actually think we lose recruits by having no nickname? I'm looking for help here.

Gross.