Samford faced Kansas in the Round of 64 for the March Madness tournament in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 21. While Kansas went into the matchup as the favorite, Samford put on a strong performance that brought the game to the wire. However, just as it looked like Samford had the chance to win the game, the ref blew his whistle for a controversial foul, which led to a Kansas win.
The foul was the talk of the night, trending on social media and bringing Samford to #1 on X. Samford became a name known by the nation, which provided the university the opportunity to take advantage of the controversial game ending.
On the morning of March 22, people began to see new slogans appear on various Samford social accounts, including President Beck Taylor’s, which said “All Heart. All Ball,” and “Make the Right Call. Choose Samford.”
There was also new merchandise with this slogan put on the Samford Fans Shop on March 23 with designs of the slogans and the moment the call was made. Associate AD for Marketing, Communications and Broadcast, B.J. Millican, was the one behind the slogans and marketing after the game.
He spoke about how after the game “the emotions were running high” and that he was initially going to put it up that night, but instead waited until the following morning to push the new content.
Dr. Taylor was one of the first ones to initially tweet it out and post the content to his socials.
“We work with a company called Athlete’s Thread, that does our NIL licensing stuff, they have been really great about turning around stuff like this,” Millican said. “They got me a design right before I got onto the plane.”
In talking about the branding and designs for shirts, Millican shared the NIL aspect of this marketing campaign.
“There is a NIL portion of it, AJ Station-Mcray obviously gets a NIL portion of that money from anything that is sold that has his name, image and likeness,” Millican said. “It can’t be understated, the marketing value of an NCAA run, not just for visibility but from a financial standpoint.”
Samford Preview Day occurred shortly after the March Madness game and subsequent controversial call, allowing Samford to use the “Make the Right Call. Choose Samford” for prospective students and their families.
“It was a great opportunity for Dr. Taylor and for everyone in admission to play off of that and have an opportunity,” Millican said.
In speaking on the future, Millican spoke of building on what they have and looking forward.
“The reason I was a lot more invested in making a decision to push this narrative, I was on the bus, I was in the locker room, I was at the hotel when the players got back, and just being around them knowing that they kinda felt they had something taken aware from them […] if we’re going to go out, let’s try to capitalize on the moment,” Millican said. “People will now know us as a NCAA tournament team, and a team that’s going to compete for a NCAA spot every year.”
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