The Bearcats Brand Is Growing

(Courtesy UC Magazine)

If you went back a decade and asked 20 different people from 20 different areas of the country to tell you something about the Cincinnati Bearcats, most of them would look at you with a puzzled look on their face. Ok, if you stopped 20 random people on the street and blurted out “WHAT ARE THE CINCINNATI BEARCATS??” they would look at you cockeyed anyways before signalling the nearest cop.

Flash forward to 2013 and after rethinking your approach, if you asked those same 20 people something about the Cincinnati Bearcats they could probably tell you more than just “they’re in Cincinnati”. It could be something as simple as the school colors or the C-Paw. It could be that Mark Dantonio, Brian Kelly, and Butch Jones used to work here. It could be that Tommy Tuberville is the new head coach. Those people might even be able to name a few players to come through the program such as Mardy Gilyard. And if you found the right person, you might be able to chat them up over a beer about a Bearcats football game both of you saw.

No matter the example, the point is that the Cincinnati Bearcats brand has expanded far beyond the reach of the 513 area code. We’re talking national, as in Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and the West Coast. Much of this can be attributed to Cincinnati’s recent BCS bowl births and their rise in the BCS rankings during the 2009 season. They were the talk of the country that year with Brian Kelly leading a group of no-names to a #3 national ranking. He put Cincinnati on the map. Butch Jones followed that up by snagging recruits from areas of the country at a rate never before seen at UC. Between his 2011 and 2012 class, he signed 12 players from schools in Florida, 4 from Georgia, 4 from California, and 2 from Tennessee. Just 8 of 50+ recruits were from the Cincinnati area.

A by product of both Kelly and Jones’ efforts is increased merchandise sales. People have embraced the Bearcats brand, are buying into the program, and want to represent UC athletics in their everyday life. This person could live in Cincinnati or they could live in Atlanta, Georgia and are a relative of Ralph David Abernathy. I don’t have the exact numbers to know where the sales are coming from but the fact remains that shoppers are snatching up UC merchandise off the shelves. How much exactly? Well according to an article published by UC, income from Bearcats gear has reached an all-time high of over $859,000 during the 2012-13 fiscal year. This places Cincinnati as the 48th highest grossing university in terms of merchandise sales out of 160 schools. Sales are up an impressive 12% from 2011-12 and represents a new record from the previous one set in 2010-11, the year after Brian Kelly’s historic 2009 campaign.

The cause? Well it’s pretty clear that football truly does drive the bus and it’s even clearer that Kelly and Jones’ time at Cincinnati has continued to propel Bearcats athletics into the national spotlight. It’s a shame that growth hasn’t been reflected in UCATS memberships but that should see an uptick in the coming years. The encouraging news is that merchandising has a snowball effect on the public. If one person sees someone in Bearcats gear, they’re likely to purchase something similar. And as more people wear their UC clothing around town the effect is amplified by the fact that non-wearers don’t want to be left out of the crowd. It’s group-think at its finest.