Acadiana Advocate named official news partner for Cajun athletics

[HoustonCajun]

I will go on record as not being a fan of this deal.

As bad as the Advertiser has been (recently) with a negative going through the motion writer, they have covered Louisiana Athletics for 119 years. No agreement needed.

This agreement with the Advocate will lead to less and less coverage by the Advertiser, and regarless of how, much their distribution has slipped, they are still by far the largest newspaper in Lafayette.

This is NOT how you grow a fan base, its how you shrink it.

Forging agreements that will lead to less coverage overall is a bad move.

Checked on-line again today. UL-Lafayette in the header for Acadiana and Baton Rouge and nothing for New Orleans. You don't make a major announcement and roll this out half-assed. All headers need to be changed to UL Ragin Cajuns and it needs to be added to New Orleans, otherwise what exposure are we getting there? We are still being branded as UL-Lafayette as the first reference and that needs to be corrected by Learfield.

[Oiler]

I have an honest question for you guys. Do you guys truly believe that removing Lafayette from our name will result in an increase in our fan base? I just don’t see that it will make much difference when the vast majority of people in our state are convinced that there is room for only one “national” university in Louisiana. I live in Baton Rouge and I spend most of my time here and in New Orleans. I can tell you, LSU totally OWNS these two markets and I just don’t believe the name issue has a thing to do with it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m 100% in favor of the name change, but I don’t think that having the word Lafayette attached to our name has anything to do with how most people view us. The two are totally separate issues.

[CajunEXPRESS]

Oiler it’s all about building the brand. Every brick is valuable. The name thing is a pallet of bricks. The LSU brick wall isn’t ever collapsing. Still we’re going to put a pretty nice wall together.

[Rougarou]

I have an honest question for you guys. Do you guys truly believe that removing Lafayette from our name will result in an increase in our fan base? I just don't see that it will make much difference when the vast majority of people in our state are convinced that there is room for only one "national" university in Louisiana. I live in Baton Rouge and I spend most of my time here and in New Orleans. I can tell you, LSU totally OWNS these two markets and I just don't believe the name issue has a thing to do with it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% in favor of the name change, but I don't think that having the word Lafayette attached to our name has anything to do with how most people view us. The two are totally separate issues.

It's about branding consistency. Talk to most people in marketing and they will tell you how important name recognition is. When I meet people outside of Acadiana I have heard 4 different names for our university. This degrades value either consciously or subconsiously. We have recruits calling us University of Lafayette. On the surface may seem like no big deal. But when you want name recognition nationally you need continuity of your brand.

It’s why LSU has spent many millions to make sure they are called LSU and not Louisiana State.

[HoustonCajun]

It's about branding consistency. Talk to most people in marketing and they will tell you how important name recognition is. When I meet people outside of Acadiana I have heard 4 different names for our university. This degrades value either consciously or subconsiously. We have recruits calling us University of Lafayette. On the surface may seem like no big deal. But when you want name recognition nationally you need continuity of your brand.

It's why LSU has spent many millions to make sure they are called LSU and not Louisiana State.

And, we need brand recognition and acceptance within Louisiana like we are now getting nationally. I hope Learfield gets these things that I mentioned corrected. Just change UL-Lafayette to UL Ragin Cajuns and put that on the Baton Rouge and New Orleans edition Sports Headers. Branding is a
never ending initiative.

[Boomer]

Oiler it’s all about building the brand. Every brick is valuable. The name thing is a pallet of bricks. The LSU brick wall isn’t ever collapsing. Still we’re going to put a pretty nice wall together.

.......you are so correct about the bullets or bricks adding up......just think when we play Mississippi, Alabama,Florida, Georgia, Tenn, Ark and the rest of the state named schools and are referred to as Louisiana.......so I have my tickets and preview of the game and someone asks who we are playing.......LOUISIANA!!!

[talktomewillis]

It isn't going to be consistent overnight.

Starting to say "Learfield must correct this" when the agreement is one day old is a bit childish.

Take a deep breath. We have waited more than 20 years for this to happen. Give them some time and space to iron things out.

[RaginFan2]

It isn't going to be consistent overnight.

Starting to say "Learfield must correct this" when the agreement is one day old is a bit childish.

Take a deep breath. We have waited more than 20 years for this to happen. Give them some time and space to iron things out.

I agree we need to give Learfield some time to take care of this. However, we can't let this drag on indefinitely, as has often happened in the past. It will happen again if we let it.

[Rainman66]

I agree we need to give Learfield some time to take care of this. However, we can't let this drag on indefinitely, as has often happened in the past. It will happen again if we let it.

Agreed, but I believe Dr Maggard and Patrick Crawford are not only on top of this, but passionate about it. That is needed to be vigilant.

[HoustonCajun]

It isn't going to be consistent overnight.

Starting to say "Learfield must correct this" when the agreement is one day old is a bit childish.

Take a deep breath. We have waited more than 20 years for this to happen. Give them some time and space to iron things out.

One would think if you are moving on from your home town paper and officially replacing it with a BR paper while expanding into BR and NO markets with the Advocate, that they would have crossed all T's and dotted all I's before rolling this out. Guess we'll find out soon enough what kind of a deal was made on this.

[CajunT]

.......you are so correct about the bullets or bricks adding up......just think when we play Mississippi, Alabama,Florida, Georgia, Tenn, Ark and the rest of the state named schools and are referred to as Louisiana.......so I have my tickets and preview of the game and someone asks who we are playing.......LOUISIANA!!!

If we play any SEC program on the SEC network, we will never be referred to as Louisiana as per their agreement with LSU.

[ULvictory]

If we play any SEC program on the SEC network, we will never be referred to as Louisiana as per their agreement with LSU.

LOL

More paranoia from our state brethren in the east I see