As Commissioner Travis Tellitocci and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference hosted the NCAA Tournament in Buffalo back in March, he kept hearing one question from others in the college athletics space. He even said he heard it from competing coaches.
What would the MAAC’s new name be?
And I’ve lived this as well. Since November, when the MAAC announced this project, and later, February, when Mid-Major Madness reported on an initial timeline thanks to an exclusive interview with Tellitocci, he and I have been followed by that question.
What logo would the 13 schools – Canisius, Fairfield, Iona, Manhattan, Marist, Merrimack, Mount St. Mary’s, Niagara, Quinnipiac, Rider, Sacred Heart, Saint Peter’s, and Siena – have on their uniforms?
On Thursday, we finally got our answer — officially. The league will be called The Metro Conference, starting on July 1.
It’s no secret that the MAAC wanted to change its name to avoid confusion with the Mid-American Conference.
“As we’ve gone through the process,” Tellitocci told Mid-Major Madness in February. “Something that somebody said that I thought was really good, is if you have a 30-second elevator pitch to promote the MAAC, you’re spending the first 15 seconds talking about who we’re not as opposed to who we are.”
He hopes that the new name will untether the conference from its midwestern neighbor.
“The goal of this project was to establish a bold and clear identity that eliminated longstanding confusion surrounding the Conference’s name,” Tellitocci said in a release. “Throughout this process, we wanted to create a brand that better positions the Conference for the future while still honoring the tradition and foundation that have defined this league for the past 45 years. We are excited about this next chapter and the future of the Metro Conference.”
The initiative was chaired by Mount St. Mary’s president Dr. Gerard Joyce, but involved representatives from all 13 schools, including student athletes, coaches, administrators, and even national media members, as reported in February.
“The evolution from the MAAC to the Metro Conference represents far more than a name change,” Joyce said in a release. “Over the past year, our committee engaged in a thoughtful and collaborative process grounded in feedback from campus leaders, student athletes, coaches, administrators, and conference stakeholders. The result is a bold new brand and logo that reflects strength, energy, identity, and the future vision of our conference. METRO captures who we are, the markets we serve, and the competitive spirit that unites our institutions. I am proud of the work that brought us to this moment and excited for what lies ahead.”
Fanta also sat down with Tellitocci — with the commissioner zooming in from this week’s league meetings in upstate New York — to discuss the name change in an interview for the conference website and social.
Tellitocci told Fanta that the eventual pick was one of four finalists for the name after starting with “a large pool of names.”
“As we went through the testing process with our various groups,” Tellitocci said. “Metro consistently scored the strongest. It was cleaner, easy to remember, easy to say, and it immediately gave the conference a distinct identity.”
However, by changing the name to the Metro, the league opens itself up to another level of confusion. From 1975 to 1995, a league that eventually merged into Conference USA was known as the Metro Conference, and featured programs like Cincinnati, Memphis, and Louisville. While it has been 30 years, many still hold fond memories of that conference. A few sources in college basketball outside of the MAAC told Mid-Major Madness that this was – at some level – a point of confusion for them in hearing the new name.
In response, Tellitocci mentioned that that factor was discussed, but they decided to move forward anyway.
“We discussed a lot about the history and could there be overlap,” he said. “In the end, that was more than 30 years ago. Our student athletes hadn’t even been born by that point.”
As with any name change, it will take time for the name to fully catch on. Many will still call the league the MAAC, and that legacy will follow the conference wherever it goes. It doesn’t impact the on-court product, but many in the league had positive reactions.
“I think it’s great that the league is creating a needed new identity while recognizing all the past successes,” Canisius men’s basketball head coach Jim Christian told Mid-Major Madness.
“I like the name. I think we get away from the confusion, but pay homage to our roots. I think is a good step for the conference,” Mount St. Mary’s men’s basketball head coach Donny Lind told Mid-Major Madness. “(the logo is) good, bold, simple, (and) again, avoids confusion. I think it will look good on courts and uniforms.”
“I like the name and the logo,” Marist men’s basketball head coach John Dunne, who has been a head coach in the league for 20 seasons, recording more wins while coaching a MAAC program than anybody else, told Mid-Major Madness. “I like the simplicity of it, and it makes sense.”
The logo was a major point of contention within the project. Tellitocci points out that the color palette is cut from five down to two, and tweaks the primary red and blue slightly. According to the branding overview, the league went through 11 rounds of logo exploration before landing on what will be used as the new logo.
Tellitocci said that the expectation was to have the name and logo in early April, but the 11 rounds pushed the process back. He told Mid-Major Madness at the Basketball Championships in March that the announcement was targeted for the end of April or early May.
“We were trying too hard to force things and concepts to work,” Tellitocci said. “We explored skyline elements, we looked at symbols, we looked at icons, we looked at different visual treatments, but we kept coming back to something that was simpler, cleaner, and bolder.”
In the branding overview, the conference revealed mockups of what the logo may look like on the court, uniforms, or a field.
The MAAC also contracted consulting firm Joe Bosack & Co. as part of the process.
“We enjoyed collaborating with all of the Conference stakeholder groups as part of this comprehensive rebranding project,” Joe Bosack, its founder and creative director, said in the release. “The Metro, its member schools, and its student athletes have an updated brand identity that reflects a great history and a promising future.”
This weekend, MAAC baseball champion Rider will play in the NCAA Tournament’s Gainesville Regional. On July 1, the conference name and logo will officially turn over.
This story will be updated with additional reporting.