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The Rebranding of Franchise:

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Tamara O’Donnell

Sport Branding, JOUR 536-701

Professor Cliff Shaluta

November 30, 2014

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2

Abstract

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers is the twenty-seventh franchise of the National

Football League and have gone under a major shift in the brand recognition in recent years. Contributions such as a new stadium, new color scheme, and changes to management and leadership backed the branding efforts to change the identity of the organization with the media, fans, and city of Tampa. and his sons headed the rebranding efforts for the franchise and would lead them into success for a number of years. As can been seen with the Buccaneers, a new image is not going to be captured overnight, but will happen through a number of small issue changes that contribute to the bigger picture. Ultimately, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were successful for a number of years and have continued their efforts to bring a positive organization identity to the city of Tampa, FL.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 3

The Rebranding of Franchise:

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The has teams located all over the United States, covering the different regions of the country one – sometimes two – teams at a time.

The state of Florida happens to be home to three of these teams – the Jacksonville

Jaguars, the , and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have set themselves up to be known as an organization that has a positive brand association and brand value among fans, executives, the National Football League, and the media. In order to accomplish this, the organization has used “strong marketing practices, strong business practices, and innovative concepts” (Lee, 2010, p. 106). The organization takes into account the way the public will perceive the team as well as the stadium that the Buccaneers play in on a regular basis throughout the season.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers

In 1974, the National Football League granted the twenty-seventh team franchise to the city of Tampa. The team would play at , which was originally for the University of Tampa Spartans and would need to expand its seating capacity. In

September 1976, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers officially played their first regular season game. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 4

Hugh Culverhouse was the original owner of the team and tried to bring the people of Tampa into the start of this franchise by letting them pick the team name and colors. Malcolm Glazer purchased the team in 1995 for a record $192 million.

John McKay was the first head coach of the team and spoke about his five-year plan to have the Buccaneers competing with the top teams in the league (Lee, 2010).

In 1996, would take over as head coach and hold an overall winning record after five previous coaches recorded overall losing records. Dungy was thus part of a turn around for the Buccaneers as a franchise on the field in the “W” column.

After many years, 2002 was a memorable year for Tampa and the Buccaneers as the team would win against San Francisco for the divisional title, beat the

Philadelphia Eagles for the conference championship, and ultimately top the Oakland

Raiders for XXXVII.

From 1977 to 2001, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers operated out of the NFC Central

(division), but from 2002 to the present have operated out of the NFC South (division).

The logo is a pirate flag type design with the team colors of red, black, orange, silver, white, and pewter mixed in, along with a football at the bottom of the flag. The mascot is a pirate known as . The franchise calls home in Tampa, Florida, with Lovie Smith being the current head coach as of 2014.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers add to the National Football League and provide a form of entertainment to the Tampa area as well as any fan of professional football.

The franchise currently offers a brand identity that has positive references and associations after a transformation within the brand to strategic planning and careful consideration of those involved and those that would be affected. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 5

A Situation in Tampa

The franchise has a number of difference challenges and issues to overcome before it would be become what it is today. Culverhouse would be sparing when it came to expenses and the team would not be able to compete at an elite level because of it. The team was unable to win at all in the very beginning and then consistently win as seasons went on. Many different small issues contributed to the overall all large challenges, but in the end the franchise overcame them.

In order for a team to compete with the best in the league, it must be able to retain quality players, but the Buccaneers were unable to do so thanks in large part to

Culverhouse being unwilling to pay those players a larger salary. Because of this, the team would continuously lose games and play an ugly version of football known as

“Yucs Football” (Lee, 2010). Not very many people were attending games since the games would not end positively for the Buccaneers. Tampa Stadium, Buccaneer home until 1998, was not up to par with what a National Football League team should be playing in.

The franchise needed a change that was visible to the public as well as ones that may be talked about but were not right out in front to see all the time. This would include the home stadium as well as practice facilities, team appearance and colors, and leadership within multiple levels and positions of the franchise. It would seem that the Buccaneers were essentially starting from zero and having to get to one hundred in what would seem like seconds. In reality, all the Buccaneers were doing was Tampa Bay Buccaneers 6 reestablishing themselves and putting out a new image of where the franchise wanted to be. The in between would be figuring out the steps to be able to keep that image.

The Facilities

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers made the move from Tampa Stadium to Raymond

James Stadium in for the start of the 2008-2009 season, with the first regular season game being held on September 20, 2008 against the . Raymond James

Stadium is a place to be proud of; it is considered state-of-the-art and is up to date on technology features. Raymond James Stadium has a current capacity of right around

66,000 seats.

As for practice facilities, training camp has been previously held at the University of Tampa, but recently was moved to Walt Disney’s Wide World of Sports facility in

Orlando. The Orlando facility is less than ten years old and consists of everything a professional football team could need and more – i.e. two fields, weight room, swimming pools, kitchen, etc (Lee, 2010, p. 108).

The changes to facilities and venues allowed the Buccaneers to more adequately ready themselves as a team to be able to compete with the best teams in the division, conference, and league.

Top to Bottom Leadership

Malcom Glazer and his family purchased the team in 1995 and would proceed to make changes that would be essential to the rebranding of the franchise. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 7

Glazer and the hiring of Tony Dungy as head coach would happen at the same time. Dungy would bring in a new coaching style that worked in the Buccaneers organization since he already has a strong and stable foundation that he was bringing with him. That and the backing of Glazer would help bring the franchise around into being one that was over .500 and would be making viable efforts to reaching the playoffs each season. And before that reaching the playoffs had only been a dream for the franchise.

The front office also got a make over. In order for the success of the franchise and to have the same information and outlook in all different ways, Glazer selected his three sons to be a part of his legacy in Tampa through guidance and leadership.

Changes to leadership and management and where the team kept its sights on would be valuable to the transformation of the team since it gave hope that those changes could happen and be accomplished, rather than just being a thought or a wish of what could be.

A New Brand of Buccaneers

To help change the appearance of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a new stadium had been built to impress and give the franchise every opportunity to succeed.

Leadership changes were made to make things happen within the franchise and to hopefully bring a new sense of optimism about making things happen. Both of these improvements give way to other changes that the fans and public will identify most with…the appearance. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 8

The original team colors had been similar to the original owner – not leading the franchise in the right direction and very “out” with the fans. The team colors were changed from an orange sherbet with white color scheme to the current pewter, red, black, and white color scheme. The old color scheme had uniforms that were bright orange for home games, which have since turned into one of the throwback uniforms.

The new uniforms have associations with the current color scheme featured uniforms on the darker side with hints of the brighter colors of red, white, and bits of orange.

Another aspect of the team that the public identifies with is the logo. Like many sports organizations the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have a number of logos that the organization uses to identify itself. The primary logo (flag) is on its third edition as of the

2014 season – see Exhibit 1. The secondary logo (pirate ship) is only on its second edition as of the 2014 season – see Exhibit 2. Along with uniform changes, the helmet and logos with the name on it have both changed to reflect the current placing as well – see Exhibits 3 and 4.

The team’s value had not been very high before the transformation due to the minimal profits that were in large part thanks to poor outcomes, which did not help attendance. It is quite similar to the domino effect – continuously losing games leads to decreasing fan attendance, which leads to a low profit and revenue. Glazer wanted to change this and has been successful for the most part. In 1995, when Glazer purchased the franchise, it was worth $192 million. According to Forbes, in 2008, the

Tampa Bay Buccaneers were worth $1.1 billion and ranked the twelfth most valuable team in the National Football League (Lee, 2010). As of the 2014 rankings in August,

Forbes lists the Buccaneers as being worth $1.225 billion with a 2013 revenue of $275 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 9 million; Tampa Bay given the eighteenth spot on the current edition of the list out of thirty-two teams (Ozanian, 2014).

The value of the team is in large part due to the unique deal the franchise has between the owners, tenants, and the city of Tampa. The owners (Glazer) receive all the profits made from events that are held in the stadium – professional football or otherwise. The city of Tampa owns and operates the facility while receiving a lease amount from the Buccaneers organization. The way the deal is set up is very unique and not one seen throughout the National Football League. Raymond James Stadium was built with money from a community tax that helps with city improvements, so essentially the Buccaneers organization has no debt in the facility but makes all profits from it.

As many organizations do, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers organization makes changes throughout the seasons – seen in Exhibits 1-4 below – to help the fans feel more connected to the team. By having a throwback uniform, older fans can identify with the current team through the color schemes and design of the uniform and logos since that is what those fans identified with when their connection to the Buccaneers was created. By creating more modern logos and schemes, new and younger fans are able to create that same relationship based upon what he or she identifies with based on current trends.

Currently, in the recent years, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are once again stuck in a slump when it comes to production levels. The team hasn’t changed much in the value margin and actually dropped in the Forbes rankings by six places. , who was the head coach following Tony Dungy, is the only coach other than Dungy to Tampa Bay Buccaneers 10 produce a winning overall production percentage, 60-57, during his tenure (2002-2008).

Since then all three coaches have held a losing record, with Lovie Smith being the current coach as off the beginning of the 2014 season. Smith and the Buccaneers have only two wins this season, yet majority of the loses have been within one score.

What Now?

The franchise is a decision point. No team wants to be the team with three different head coaches in three seasons, but that might be what needs to happen.

Currently, the Glazer family estate (his sons) operate and chair the franchise, so they need to decide what should be done before the Buccaneers end up in a hole again, which they are already well on their way too. Since the Dungy/Gruden era, the team is

30-61-0, thus obviously not having a playoff berth since then either.

Cheerleaders were added to the organization in 1997 as another identification piece for the organization, much like other National Football League franchises. The games are broadcast on radio stations with big-name, former-professional players as commentators over the different seasons following their careers.

The Buccaneers have also jumped on the social media trend and created accounts on multiple platforms. A Buccaneers account can be found on Facebook,

Twitter, and Instagram. Having the multiple platforms being active, allows visibility to all different fans and markets that may use one not the other; see Exhibit 5 for a breakdown of accounts.

The franchise has created BucVision within the stadium to enhance the in-game experience. It includes two video boards at the ends of the stadium, each measuring Tampa Bay Buccaneers 11 twenty-four feet high by ninety-two feet wide. Those dimensions make the boards bigger than most in the league. They were also the first to be high definition, which once again enhanced the experience. The stadium also has a place known as “the

Cove” located in the north end zone of Raymond James Stadium. It has pirate ship worth millions of dollars along with cannons that fire whenever the Buccaneers reach the red-zone or score. “The Cove” was established with concessions, shops, and tables and was created with the idea of being resort-like.

The team has also had some pro-bowlers and a few players added to the Hall of

Fame, along with a number of records within the National Football League record books.

On the team website, users can be linked to downloads of wallpapers, the official mobile app, and fan photos from the games. There are many other ways to get involved and information that can be found on the website for adult fans to the kids’ zone, from the long-time fans to the new one. The organization has really tried to make the experience a positive one for the fans regardless of the outcome of games.

Yes, No, Maybe, Again? Or Something New?

What Malcolm Glazer did when he bought the franchise was a very successful endeavor. He created a team that Tampa could be proud of and one that they could identify with through an updated brand identity. The team also saw a goal that they could go after; the franchise and team needs that identification again. Leadership starts at the top and must be continued through all levels of the organization, which is something that Glazer recognized. The Buccaneers must realign to make that happen Tampa Bay Buccaneers 12 once again; the leadership at team level should have the same ideas as the management and the two should be in constant agreement in order to make that work.

The franchise is stuck in a pattern now of parting ways with a coach that has a positive influence on the team after a few good seasons, rather than working with him to stay around long term as part of the franchise identity and on field visibility to the fans.

The level of where the Buccaneers can compete is not all the great, so they cannot be a team that is counted on or expected to win like some of the other elite teams. Instead, it's the exact opposite.

Giving the team look – uniform, logo, etc. – a more modern look is something many teams in the league did before this season based on a better uniform design for the athletes. That is something, which is custom around the league, but does aid in fan recognition.

In my opinion, the franchise must come up with something that is completely revolutionary that hasn't been done before. I definitely think the franchise is on the right track business-wise, but team-wise there is part of the puzzle missing that needs to be found before a winning record can be had again. There is plenty of ways for fan engagement, so it is definitely a piece on the team level. Maybe some budget rearranging so that better player salaries can be negotiated thus keeping them around long-term, rather than watching them sign with another franchise. This can be done by way of other non-football related events or changing of how money is used. But something definitely needs to be worked out so that quality players stick around more than a few years, coaches too.

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Lessons Learned

The number one things that I identify with a re-branding or branding success is fan and outside public perception or identification with the sport organization. The fans are what the team is built from. They create an audience that is loyal to the end and follows the team each step of the way. The fans spread that support to those around them and foster a new connection to the team by another. Many fan loyalties are passed down through families so keeping up with the different generations and changes is important for a brand as well.

Change may be hard, but can be important and the best idea in the long run.

There are big changes and small changes for organization to consider – each one being just as impactful as the other. A logo change (identification) is just as crucial as a coaching change (leadership), since both show a new focus and era for the organization to grow upon.

Exhibit 1

Tampa Bay Buccaneers Primary Logo

1976 - 1996 1997 – 2013 2014 - present (SportLogos.net, 2014)

A drastic change occurred before the 1997 season, while a brightness in color is the change in the most recent logo. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 14

Exhibit 2

Tampa Bay Buccaneers Secondary Logo

1997 – 2013 2014 - present (SportLogos.net, 2014)

Exhibit 3

Tampa Bay Buccaneers Uniforms & Helmets

(SportLogos.net, 2014) Tampa Bay Buccaneers 15

Exhibit 4

Tampa Bay Buccaneers Alternate Logos

1997 - 2013 2014 - present (SportLogos.net, 2014)

Exhibit 5

Tampa Bay Buccaneers Social Media

Twitter Facebook Instagram

211,000 followers 865,000 likes 61,600 followers

@TBBuccaneers Tampa Bay Buccaneers @tbbuccaneers

Conclusion

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a franchise of ups and downs with wins and loses similar to any other sport organization. But the Buccaneers have faced more downs than ups in their history but have found ways to overcome them and brand themselves as a team with business ways that other organization look up to, especially with the stadium deal with the city of Tampa. The team centers around fan experience to created connections that would last through the tough seasons and bring new generations into it.

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References

Forbes. (2008, September 10). #12 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Retrieved November 2014,

from NFL Team Valuations:

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/30/sportsmoney_nfl08_Tampa-Bay-

Buccaneers_306470.html

Lee, J. W. (2010). Rebranding of a Franchise: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In J. W.

Lee, Branded: Branding in Sport Business (pp. 105-11). Durham, NC, USA:

Carolina Academic Press.

Ozanian, M. (2014, August 20). Tampa Bay Buccaneers - NFL Team Values 2014.

Retrieved November 2014, from Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlm45fgikm/18-tampa-bay-buccaneers-4/

Raymond James Financial. (2014). About the Stadium. Retrieved November 2014, from

Raymond James Stadium: http://raymondjamesstadium.com/about-the-stadium/

SportLogos.net. (2014). Tampa Bay Buccaneers Logos. Retrieved November 2014,

from Chris Creamer's Sports Logos:

http://www.sportslogos.net/logos/list_by_team/176

Tampa Bay Buccaneers. (2014). Retrieved November 2014, from Official Site of the

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: http://www.buccaneers.com/index.html