Marketing and branding is among one of the absolute most important things for Minor League Baseball teams. They can’t control the players that show up, the manager, and by default, the wins-and-losses. What they can control is the product off of the field, the branding, the marketing, and community service. A good logo can do wonders for a team. While it may not bring in people off of the streets and through the gates, selling merchandise helps. And having a cool logo that you can put on hats, shirts, socks – whatever – it helps. And people will buy it without much interest in actually following along with the team. The Fresno Taco’s alternate logo says hello.
The Billings Mustangs, one of the Cincinnati Reds rookie-level affiliates, did a little bit of re-branding this winter. Tyler Maun of MiLB.com highlighted several of the new logos throughout Minor League Baseball for the upcoming season, with the Mustangs being one of them. The Mustangs aren’t doing an entirely rebranding, though. They will keep two of their previous logos, and introduce one new one, along with one other that appears it will be used on the 4th of July.
It looks like Homer (the Mustang’s Mascot) got a new mane style for the new logo. It’s a little more clean in the new logo than the full-bodied logo in the lower left where things are a tad more free flowing.
It’s a bit strange that this wasn’t released by the Billings Mustangs, but instead is coming out via MiLB.com. There’s probably a reason for it, but what that is, I’m just not sure yet. I’m a big fan of the new look, though.