There are a number of sports marketing objectives that are a constant focus for collegiate athletics departments. The most prominent objective in major college athletics marketing often times is to grow the athletics brand and to increase notoriety for the university. The 2013 NCAA men’s basketball tournament saw a #15 seed, Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU), advance to the sweet 16 round of the tournament for the first time in tournament history; FGCU became a social media marvel and a Cinderella story for the ages thanks to their rise from obscurity via high flying basketball and a social media explosion. Following an opening round upset of perennial power and #2 seed, Georgetown University, and in particular following a series of highlight reel dunks and alley oops, a twitter account posted a message stating that previously unknown Florida Gulf Coast University must be located in “Dunk City, Florida.” The nickname “Dunk City” quickly caught on and FGCU became characterized by both their style of play and their carefree fun loving attitude, both of which were pointed to in the newly acquired nickname and marketing campaign. Less than 5 hours after the Georgetown game had ended, a music video had been created that would soon go viral referring to FGCU’s basketball team, affectionately referring to the team as Dunk City. Following the game and the popularity explosion of the video, dunk city tee shirts were made, dunk city video packages were produced by CBS and ESPN was featuring the program on SportsCenter.
To date, FGCU athletics is still utilizing the “Dunk City” moniker. Every copy of the 2013-2014 season media guide possesses a QR code that can be scanned by iPhone and android devices, bringing about a mobile highlight tape consisting of every dunk from the previous year and a half of FGCU basketball. Fans at the institution, as well as in surrounding southwest Florida, have jumped on board with the FGCU, which opened only 17 years ago. A constant objective of sports marketing is to grow the fan base, or increase the number of individuals who recognize and identify with a particular team. Through a number of statistics, including a 415% rise in merchandise sales, and a 154% increase in season ticket sales, we can see that these types of behaviors have certainly grown at FGCU. The primary end result of the dunk city marketing campaign was described as “transformational” by FGCU athletics director Kevin Kavanagh; notoriety for the less than 20 year old university has truly spiked following the dunk city campaign during the 2013 NCAA tournament. One professor who was spending time over the 2013 summer in China reported being approached on the street as a response to his FGCU apparel with only the words “dunk city” being exclaimed at him; university officials even go as far as to praise the 2013 NCAA tournament success and exposure as being the primary reason for the schools admissions application hike (a 35% increase in applications for undergraduate enrollment from 2013-2014).
In the context of sports marketing the athletics department at Florida Gulf Coast University struck gold via another individual’s social media post; without the tweet referring to “Dunk City, Florida” the school’s successful marketing of the basketball program may have never taken off. However, the athletics department displayed a brilliant strategy of building off of a team’s success to produce a monumentally successful advertising campaign. Dunk city was clearly a monumentally successful sports marketing campaign in that it helped to increase the fan base and increase fan behavior/activity. More so, the dunk city marketing campaign extended beyond sports, the sports marketing campaign extended into the institutional realm helping to improve the national and international face of an entire fledgling university. Dunk City has become the brand of FGCU basketball, thanks to the University’s acceptance and promotion of the ad campaign. The catchy and proper fitting nickname helped bring about massive positive changes; in this instance, the relevance and popularity of the nickname or moniker simply made the ad campaign.
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