I know for the better part of the last decade we’ve be fighting (mostly in state schools) the whole Louisiana vs ULL argument for athletics.
I will say over the last 6-12 months I’ve notice big drop off in our fan base not longer trying to counter when someone one comments “USL” or “ULL” on a post about Louisiana.
I think this is a good thing because we know a portion of non UL fans would feed off the fact that we would get triggered by it so they kept posting it. The more we ignore them,0 the less they post about it. Additionally more and more people are recognizing the Louisiana brand because of ESPN and the CFB video game and just time.
They know they lost the war, therefore we don’t even really need to give them the time of day on this anymore. Time to move on the bigger and better things!
I’m not wasting my time anymore. The university isn’t committed to it, the coaches don’t educate the recruits on it, no one central area of the entire organization leads the way on identity protocol, so why should I spend my time fighting battles they won’t fight themselves?
I don’t think Martin Hall needs to. Sports is the number one marketing for a university (that’s a whole different discussion) but having ESPN and EAs CFB game are the biggest things for our branding. Those two right there basically shut everyone up. The newer generations will never know it as ULL because they always just seen Louisiana on the TV.
I also stopped responding the USL and ULL comments. I know we won the war on this one.
Honestly I couldn’t give two shits less what anyone calls us. Nobody in the state will ever call us Louisiana. Whatever. I’m more worried about the product we put on the field and so far this year it’s been very USL like. Between softball, basketball, baseball and football it’s left a lot to be desired.
I was down with that. Every school has a throw back collection. It’s what we’ve done the last 26 years that’s the problem. And the eunuchs running this institution but that’s for an another thread.
Bulldog is overrated. I’m a Cajuns guy only since I had no ties to the city or school at the time. I really just wish they would create vintage designed clothes but kept all our modern branding….but that would involve the school to spend money so… that’ll never happen
When I went in our own merch store in 2022 and saw this and a dozen other similar items, I didn’t necessarily give up. I still care about the name issue, but I’m not arguing that with a stranger online. We don’t respect ourselves. Why should they? The important outlets call us Louisiana, and that’s as good as I’ll ever see.
The war is over. We won. The only people that have a problem with it will never change anyway as I don’t expect them to. Let them cry when while they see “Louisiana” on the score ticker while playing their team. Not my problem.
Louisiana schools and conference rivals will never refer to us as Louisiana. It will always be ULL, USL, ULaLa, ETC to them, and that’s okay for rivalry purposes. They know they’ve lost the war, they are just trolling now for a negative response.
We have won the branding war. ULM conceded the ‘Louisiana’ title to us, and that was the last major hurdle. All the major networks and EA Sports now refer to us as Louisiana. That makes our brand recognizable nationwide. Give it a few more years.
The REAL issue is the abbreviation. Technically, we are not UL… we are LA. We might need to make a marketing push in the future to address this, because I don’t even think our own fans are aware of this change.
I did notice the last couple years at several sporting events including basketball that we were using UL on the scoreboard so they might be trying push for that again.
