Well, that was quick.
Shortly after announcing a new alternate identity, the Sacramento River Cats — Triple-A affiliates of the San Francisco Giants — announced that they were dropping it. The Sacramento Gold Diggers identity, which we covered yesterday, was quickly derided as sexist due to a launch video featuring women with gold dollar signs over their eyes.
Missed the mark big time on this River Cats. It is a sexist and demeaning video. I expect better from your organization. @RiverCats https://t.co/umfkxFinAL
— Lisa Kaplan, Councilmember (@CM_LisaKaplan) April 11, 2025
The video councilmember Lisa Kaplan was replying to was hastily deleted by the club, but is preserved in this Sacramento Bee video. The Bee further reported that Mayor pro tempore of West Sacramento (where the River Cats’ ballpark is), Verna Sulpizio-Hull, also criticized the identity. “The video is disrespectful to women, misogynistic and downright offensive,” Sulpizio-Hull told the Bee’s Robin Epley. “This attempt to market a team that we love, with such a demeaning message about women, does not align with our values in West Sacramento.”
The team told SFGate that “Our recent marketing campaign for an alternative identity clearly missed the mark. Our intention was to creatively reference the rich history of Sacramento and gold country, but our approach was wrong, and we are sorry for the mistake. We will no longer be using this identity.”
As the statement says, the team is completely nixing the alternate identity. The identity was scheduled to make its on-field debut on April 19 and was to be worn a further four times this season. All merchandise has been scrubbed from the team’s online shop, as has any mention of the alternate identity on the team’s social media accounts. A page on the team’s website that highlighted the Gold Diggers identity now redirects to a 404 page.
I, personally, found the video to be in poor taste, but was surprised that the River Cats opted to drop the whole alternate identity, especially since they already went through the trouble of actually manufacturing the uniforms and merchandise with the alternate identity. I can imagine this represents a pretty sizeable financial loss for the River Cats.
At the same time, I can understand them just wanting to distance themselves from the video completely, and in all likelihood the merch probably wouldn’t sell very well after the controversy.
I can’t help but think part of the story behind the identity was a reference to the A’s owners. Seeing as the A’s are sharing their stadium, the general nature of ultra-rich owners moving teams, and the black and gold color scheme typically associated with Vegas. (Golden Knights, Aces for a few years)
I also wonder if these teams (Gold Diggers, Oyster Catchers) are bad at forethought, or are doing these things intentionally for the publicity. Or somehow maybe both?
I don’t think that these marketing campaigns were intentionally done in poor taste to generate publicity, as many other minor league baseball teams do the same alternate identity campaigns during the season. It seems that every day you hear ” The XXXX baseball team will be rebranded as the XXXXX for the following days.”
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My opinion is that simply that there was no evaluation during the development of the campaign as to the optics of the campaign to various groups in the community (i.e. – women, ethnic groups, etc) and how these groups may perceive the campaign.
I don’t blame the River Cats for scrubbing the whole campaign. It’s not a good look.
This reminds me of the recent controversy with the MLB New Era Overlap hats involving the Texas Rangers.
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It seems to me that people in these campaigns need to get some outside focus groups to preview elements of the campaigns before they are presented to the general public. It’s poor quality control on their part.
Once that video was released, they forfeited all the plausible deniability they might have had.
I found the logo offputting and creepy.
People need to lighten up.
They certainly do. How about “The Moneygrabbers”?
Or maybe people need to think before they do something like this. What did they expect to happen? Stupid move by the team.
This is absurd stuff. There are real issues going on in our country and people choose to get up in arms about a reference to gold diggers?
We are allowed to be upset about any number of things. I hit my shin getting into my car this morning. It’s nowhere near the hardship people in Gaza are facing, but it still really hurt and I can be upset about it.
Agree…
It’s a shame about your shin and even bigger shame for the gold diggers and even worse for the Gaza people that their leaders betrayed them and treat them like they do…
Dang, really wanted the cap with the $ logo:)
Me too
I contacted their front office. They’re very nice about dumping off the merch. I have a hat and jersey OTW.
Should have just changed the logo to picking nose. “Are we not human? If we pick, do we not bleed? I am not an animal!” Seinfeld
To quote Sgt. Hulka-
“Lighten up, Francis”.
I actually really wanted the jersey and hat to give to a friend for his birthday.
Rockies CC
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Interesting that the low profile CC Batting Practice cap is different than the high crown one. And, honestly, I like the low profile better. The high crown looks more like a Cubs cap to me.
Are the Rockies now going to rebrand as the Denver Rockies?
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How about the Sacramento Mea Culpas? Logo of a PR person falling on their sword.
That Council person’s tweet got four likes and zero comments
They could just change it to Gold Miners
After further review of the video… people are way too sensitive nowadays.
Other than the whole identity being mega cringe worthy, the design is poor except for the arched wording. Looks like a fashion jersey. The hat, well….I’ll just say it is bad and leave it at that.
I just think that there are other things more concerning than someone’s perception.
A rich man, once commented a similar mistake.
His comment?
“If you do something that stupid, well, it makes sense, because you are only one person.”
“And you are an idiot.’
“If a company makes a mistake that stupid, it’s intentional.”
Way late to the party, and sort of unrelated, but if you’re in the area, give Robin Eply a follow. She has a fun podcast if you’re a journalism nerd and is pretty witty on social media and at her job
Why is this here?
I need that jersey!
The furious pace of new apparel which, upon reflection, wasn’t such a good idea, leads me to believe these aren’t mistakes at all. The Col. Tom Parker definition of Bad Publicity.
Not a good campaign but I like the logos. Call them Gold Miners or 49ers instead.
I know if the council member was upset over that she must have flipped her lid when she heard the sexist rhetoric coming from Blue origin about their all-female flight this morning:
Putting the ass back in astronaut?
Just a tad objectifying for women…