Remember what the Washington Bullets used to look like?

Brand new logos and uniforms were revealed for the Wizards that seem awfully familiar to their old uniforms. Since changing their name from the Wizards to the Bullets in 1997, the colors certainly did not reflect the NBA team.

With a patriotic new red, white and blue color scheme, the nation's capital is certainly represented by the right colors. What's also new is the logo marks.Continue reading...

One of the most storied teams in the annals of baseball is the Los Angeles Dodgers. Why? Primarily because their roots are in the Brooklyn, New York of the 1950s. That's where the "Bums," as they were affectionately known, were the classic National League underdogs to the American League New York Yankees.

It wasn't that the Dodgers were bad; in fact, they had some of the best-known players in baseball — such immortals as Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, and Roy Campanella. It was just they could never beat the Yanks (well, not never: after playing the Yankees in four World Series, the Dodgers finally beat them to win the 1955 World Series — only to lose to the Yankees again the next year).

A 1959 World Series win as the Los Angeles Dodgers may have somewhat soothed the bad blood surrounding the Brooklyn Dodgers' relocation to the West Coast, but the team would never be quite the same. Still, they won two more World Series in the 1960s (one against the Yankees) and another in 1988.

But now the Dodgers brand is being battered by a controversy that seems to reinforce the famed phrase coined by Yogi Berra (he of the Yankees): "It ain't over 'til it's over."Continue reading...

To promote UFC 129 on Saturday, April 30, UFC decided against showing breaking bones, and instead appealed to fans' funny bones. The video, starring UFC legend "Executive Iceman" Chuck Liddell, features inside jokes about Liddell's earlier knockout and longtime rival Tito Otiz. And, as you'll see above, it features a great deal of Apple product placement.Continue reading...

Tapping into the interest in the NBA Playoffs, the First Lady promotes basketball as a fun way for families to say in shape — all in support of her Let's Move! healthy kids initiative.

In a bid to lure younger viewers, Major League Baseball's new advertising campaign highlights humor over action, featuring players such as San Francisco Giants pitcher Brian Wilson, who continues riffing on his "Fear the beard" MLB 2K11 game spots. 

The league introduced the new spots in tandem with the start of the 2011 season on March 31st. The previous theme, “Beyond Baseball,” has been replaced with the phrase “MLB Always Epic,” reinforced with a microsite of the same name.Continue reading...

Rebrand using authenticity marketing that credibly trashes your own pizza products but ends up restoring trust in what you’re doing? Check. Light a fire under the chicken “wing” of your business after essentially ignoring it for a few years? Check. Re-enter national sports marketing after a complete two-year absence? Check.

Domino’s Pizza has ticked off the latest item on its brand-revival agenda by rising off the bench to become the official pizza sponsor of NCAA March Madness. For the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based brand, the men’s college-basketball tournament is its first national sports-marketing sponsorship since pulling out of NASCAR a couple of years ago.Continue reading...

On the heels of our report about the flagging influence of traditional news media comes a Washington Post story about the manner in which sports teams are scoring media coverage and protecting their brands.

Increasingly, professional, collegiate, and even high school sports teams are tightly controlling the way news about their team brands gets out to the public. In fact, many leagues, conferences and even teams have their own media operations. A lot of it has to do with the widespread availability of news and information via the Internet.Continue reading...

It’s that time again. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament begins tomorrow, and brands are gearing up as never before, from official “corporate champions” to those that can suggest only the thinnest of possible connections between themselves and some sort of vernal activity.Continue reading...