The campaign aims to boost excitement surrounding athletics and promote the research center’s work
BY COLINA HARVEY— sports@theaggie.org
In May, UC Davis Athletics announced a new line of jerseys to be worn by nine UC Davis teams this year. The jerseys introduced a new shade of blue into the color scheme: “bold aqua” to represent Lake Tahoe.
The jerseys are a collaboration with UC Davis’ Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC). TERC conducts research on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, aiming to preserve Lake Tahoe through its studies.
Danielle Shank, the senior associate athletics director for External Relations and chief marketing officer for UC Davis Athletics, explained how the partnership was formed.
“Over the summer, [we] signed a new deal with Adidas; that’s who outfits all of our teams,” Shank said. “With signing this deal, they gave us some promotional money […]. I was talking with our athletic director about how he wanted to spend some of that promotional money, and we’re always looking for ways that we can show that Athletics is really the front porch of the university.”
While brainstorming which on-campus units to highlight with the new jerseys, Athletic Director Rocko DeLuca decided to partner with TERC.
“I don’t think enough people know about [TERC] given all the research they do,” Shank said. “If you were to Google what the temperature of Lake Tahoe is, that’s a UC Davis buoy that’s measuring that.”
The jerseys, which Shank helped design in collaboration with Adidas, are light blue and feature the outline of the lake. The UC Davis Athletics logo is overlaid onto the illustration of the lake, which nearly stretches from coast to coast and creates a visual representation of the research that TERC does in both California and Nevada. The color, “bold aqua,” was chosen to represent the water of the lake.
“When we worked with Adidas and looked at their color palette, that’s actually the name of the color,” Shank said. “We were looking at different shades of blue as much as we were learning about the Tahoe Environmental Research Center. Their research, their innovation is also pretty bold, and so it kind of seemed like the perfect marriage.”
While UC Davis Athletics has done themed games in the past, a partnership of this nature with new, custom-designed jerseys is the first of its kind at UC Davis. The nine ticketed teams each have one Tahoe-themed game on their schedule, in which they will display the jerseys. While the non-ticketed teams may not sport the jerseys this year, the Tahoe jerseys will be added to their collection once they order new jerseys.
However, the campaign is not centered solely on the new jerseys; the Athletics Department is also ensuring that they bring attention to TERC, every step of the way.
“We’re trying to link to their website,” Shank said. “We’re trying to make sure that we collab on social media and that we’re always talking about them, putting them in the forefront. So it’s not just, ‘Hey, we picked this new color.’ It’s very purposeful.”
The campaign has successfully boosted the profile of both UC Davis Athletics and TERC, according to Shank. After the jerseys were featured on ESPN’s SportsCenter in September, both traffic on TERC’s website and social media engagement for the Athletics Department increased significantly.
“We got two million people who saw that segment, and that was the day of our game,” Shank said. “I’ll have to pull up the email, but I asked the Tahoe folks, ‘Did you get new people coming to your website?’ And they said we had, you know, 1,000 new users that never knew about us [or] followed our website. Our social media engagement went up 400%, so it’s clear proof of concept that it works.”
Shank hopes to be able to similarly highlight other units at UC Davis; however, the frequency will depend on the availability of funding.
While there has been a large positive response to the campaign, some community members have objected to it. Social media users, along with fans of other universities — such as the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) — have called it a stretch.
“That’s ridiculous,” UNR football Head Coach Jeff Choate said in an interview from a post-media day meeting. “I’m sorry UC Davis, but that’s a fail in my book.”
UNR, which has a Division I Athletics Department 40 miles from the lake, hasn’t made a statement regarding the matter; however, many local Reno news outlets have published media in criticism.
Shank clarified that UC Davis is not attempting to claim Lake Tahoe; rather, they are celebrating what makes UC Davis special.
“It’s highlighting the research and the work we do there,” Shank said. “UC Davis is there 365 [days a year]; the people doing research on the boat are on the water 200 days a year. So UC Davis is always in Tahoe. Our people are there and doing the work, and people who are closer are welcome to claim Lake Tahoe. It’s not exclusive to us.”
For fans wanting to sport the gear themselves, there are several ways to acquire it.
“Everyone asks how they can get the gear,” Shank said. “So we have an Aggie sideline store where you can […] choose the logo and then custom-design some gear if you want it there. The [UC Davis] Bookstore has some stuff too, so, ideally, we want to do a whole Lake Tahoe line and expand it in the future.”
As these jerseys are added to the rotation in the Athletics Department, students and sports fans will be seeing a lot more of the Tahoe Blue in UC Davis Athletics.
Written by: Colina Harvey — sports@theaggie.org
