Like it or not, noise from RidgeYaks’ rebrand helps club
Right before Salem’s Low-A minor league baseball team announced its rebrand from the Red Sox to the RidgeYaks, general manager Allen Lawrence gathered his staff.
“The worst thing that could happen when we announce this publicly at our launch party on Nov. 8 is that 100% of people hate the new name,” Lawrence recalled telling them. “I said the second worst thing is that 100% of people like it.”
Lawrence and his staff avoided both of those fates. The team announced its rebrand Nov. 8 and debuted the look on the field April 2. The RidgeYaks name is a combination of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are visible beyond Salem Memorial Ballpark’s outfield wall, and yaks, a real bovine that lives in the mountains — just slightly larger ones a few continents away in the Himalaya, Tibetan Plateau and Mongolia.
Salem general manager Allen Lawrence (left) is joined by former Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster, Boston Red Sox pitcher Zack Kelly and assistant general manager Blair Hoke during the unveiling of the RidgeYaks rebrand on Nov. 8 at Salem Memorial Ballpark.
The Salem RidgeYaks have three new uniform sets, three wordmarks, five logos and a mascot — Mac the Yak, a blue, horned creature named after nearby McAfee Knob. The primary logo depicts Mac steering a kayak and subtly features the Blue Ridge Mountains and Salem Memorial Ballpark’s landscape in his hairline.
“We had a lot of people that didn’t like it,” Lawrence said. “Honestly, that was OK. We knew going in that not everybody was going to like it.”
More than a year before the team announced the rebrand, Lawrence, assistant general manager Blair Hoke and their staff began the process. They received approval from the team's owner, Diamond Sports Holdings. Then, they employed Learfield, a sports marketing company that primarily works with colleges, and their design team to draft some potential names and logos for the Boston Red Sox's Low-A club.
Salem's new road and home uniforms were hanging on racks for fans to buy after the team unveiled its new nickname, the RidgeYaks, on Saturday at Salem Memorial Ballpark.
The soon-to-be RidgeYaks didn’t hold a “name the team” contest, which the Richmond Flying Squirrels utilized to name their Double-A team in 2009. Lawrence said that’s less common now than it was five or 10 years ago. Instead, they hosted town hall meetings with team stakeholders and the community and sent questionnaires to season ticket holders. They sought feedback on community values.
“A lot of the important themes we heard from the key stakeholders were the outdoor recreational activities,” Lawrence said. “That’s what they think of when they think of this area — hiking, kayaking, fishing. Unfortunately, there’s probably not a logo that brings all of those activities into one, so we went with our mascot kayaking. Again, that’s really meant to bring the outdoor recreation (motif) to life.”
Fans cheer and enjoy the Salem RidgeYaks game against the Delmarva Shorebirds on May 5 at Salem Memorial Ballpark in Salem.
Plus, they needed a name they could mold to fit their season ticket holders’ group and kids’ club. Lawrence and his staff evaluated several names, colors and logos, then narrowed their search to the RidgeYaks. There was plenty to think through.
“We really wanted to focus on making sure that it was something where we could come up with a good mascot. You have to consider the mascot,” Lawrence said. “You have to consider some alternate names, shortening the names — like we did when we shortened RidgeYaks to Yaks. Those are all things we had to consider.”
The RidgeYaks’ parent club, the Boston Red Sox, are an international brand, but they are not local to the Salem area. That brings monetary and other issues for Salem’s club. First, fans who want Red Sox merchandise can find it on Walmart, Amazon or any number of national retailers, while if they want something that says RidgeYaks on it, they must acquire it through the team. Plus, fans of Boston rivals such as the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles might be hesitant to support a team called the Red Sox. The rebrand also gave the team an opportunity to be more creative with activities and programming inside Salem Memorial Ballpark.
The Salem RidgeYacks' Jose Bello pitches against the Fredericksburg Nationals during a game at Salem Memorial Ballpark on April 25.
The RidgeYaks followed a trend where minor league teams are moving away from being named after their parent clubs. Most have, in Lawrence’s words, “zany, outside-the-box names,” such as the Rocket City Trash Pandas (Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels), Hartford Yard Goats (Double-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies) and Akron RubberDucks (Double-A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians). Lawrence estimated that, in the next few years, every minor league team currently named after their MLB affiliate will rebrand.
“To a lot of outsiders, often, they don’t make sense. That’s what is fun about them,” Lawrence said. “People look at them and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is crazy.’ Nobody ever talked about the Red Sox as being crazy, right? That was the safe play. That was important to us when we became the Red Sox, but it was equally as important to shift from that name.”
Salem RidgeYaks manager Ozzie Chavez (right) and defensive coach Kyle Schmidt (left) joke around during a team photo.
Again, that doesn’t mean everybody liked it. Salem’s professional team has changed names before; it shifted from the Rebels to Pirates to Redbirds to Buccaneers to Avalanche before taking the Red Sox moniker ahead of the 2009 campaign. Similar scrutiny existed during other rebrands, when Lawrence also worked for the team, but social media made the experience different.
“There were some people that were very, very vocal on social media — and, honestly, that was great,” Lawrence said.
Because here’s the thing: negative publicity is still publicity. It got people talking about the Salem RidgeYaks in a way that people weren’t discussing the Salem Red Sox. Soon after the team announced the rebrand, Lawrence went to a restaurant.
“My waitress told me recently, ‘Yeah, I was in the back and we were talking about how much we hated the new name,” he said. “I said, ‘I appreciate that, thank you.’ She was like, ‘No, we were talking about how we hate it.’
“I said: ‘No, I understand. You’re talking about it, though. You never talked about it when we were the Red Sox — and I love that you’re talking about it, good, bad or indifferent.’”
Lawrence said attendance at home games has risen by about 5% and in-park merchandise sales are up about 125%. That last figure doesn’t include online sales; altogether, he said merchandise sales have soared about 300% from this time last year. Lawrence said online sales are still increasing and every new product release sells well.
There are three weeks left in the regular season, and only two remaining homestands, Aug. 18-23 and Sept. 1-6, until the playoffs. The Yaks are in first place in the Carolina League's North Division, with a shot at making the playoffs.
“A few of the people that were very vocally against the new name, we’ve seen them out here wearing RidgeYaks merchandise this year.”
Sam Mostow (540)981-3251
