{"id":38093,"date":"2019-07-24T00:00:13","date_gmt":"2019-07-24T00:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=38093"},"modified":"2019-07-24T00:00:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T00:00:13","slug":"naming-a-baseball-team-requires-top-notch-marketing-skill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=38093","title":{"rendered":"Naming a baseball team requires top-notch marketing skill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=SodPoodles%20%23Soddies%20%23TexasLeague%20%23Hodgetown%20%23AmarilloCVC&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/ama-soddies.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-38024\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/ama-soddies-300x224.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/ama-soddies-300x224.png 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/ama-soddies.png 420w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Just as I have given up making political predictions, I am done questioning the wisdom of marketing gurus who study the ins and outs of delivering brand names that catch the public&#8217;s attention.<\/p>\n<p>I once questioned the wisdom of all that hotel construction in Amarillo. A friend of mine at the Convention and Visitors Council told me not to worry; the hotels will be do just fine. Turns out my friend was correct.<\/p>\n<p>So, with that I will declare my belief in the marketers who settled on the name of the city&#8217;s minor-league baseball franchise. The Sod Poodles are playing baseball before good crowds at Hodgetown.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s more the team&#8217;s name has become the talk of the town, the Texas League communities where they play when they&#8217;re not at home and in baseball publications all over the nation.<\/p>\n<p>Hey, weren&#8217;t the Sod Poodles named the top minor-league nickname in the country? Well, they were, although we can debate until we run out of breath about the validity of the survey.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever, the Sod Poodles turned out to be a name that had to grow on some of us \u2026 such as me. I hate the name when I first saw it on the list of finalist names that the Elmore Group, the franchise owner, revealed to the public.<\/p>\n<p>They mentioned something about Sod Poodles being some sort of old-time name for prairie dogs. Sure thing, dudes. Whatever you say.<\/p>\n<p>The name, though, has stuck. It has become part of the franchise&#8217;s identity, which likely is what the Elmore Group and its marketing geniuses had in mind from the get-go.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why they get paid the big bucks and shmucks like me are sitting in the peanut gallery. I live now in a community next to one of the teams that comprise the Texas League along with the Sod Poodles. They play hardball in Frisco. They&#8217;re called the <em>Frisco Roughriders<\/em>, which to my ear sounds almost milquetoast compared to the name given their rivals in Amarillo.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever, my view from afar tells me that the Elmore Group marketers knew what they were doing.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll just keep my marketing thoughts to myself and enjoy watching the community reap the benefits of knowledge from the experts.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=SodPoodles%20%23Soddies%20%23TexasLeague%20%23Hodgetown%20%23AmarilloCVC&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just as I have given up making political predictions, I am done questioning the wisdom of marketing gurus who study the ins and outs of delivering brand names that catch the public&#8217;s attention. I once questioned the wisdom of all that hotel construction in Amarillo. A friend of mine at the Convention and Visitors Council &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=38093\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Naming a baseball team requires top-notch marketing skill<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17],"tags":[7881,8802,8347,5631,5786],"class_list":["post-38093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-sports-news","tag-amarillo-sod-poodles","tag-convention-and-visitors-council","tag-hodgetown","tag-minor-league-baseball","tag-texas-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38094,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38093\/revisions\/38094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}