Kalamazoo, MI – In what has been dubbed “the most 2016 thing to happen to baseball”, the Kalamazoo Growlers announced a poll Monday morning to let fans choose which of their favorite emojis would be featured on jerseys worn by the team during its August 13th game against the Rockford Rivets. Voting is open until March 1st and can be done here.
Within hours of the promotion's release, it went viral – first being tweeted by ESPN’s Darren Rovell and ESPN’s SportsCenter, and followed by articles from Cut4 (MLB.com), CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, NBC Sports, Fox Sports, USA Today and many local news affiliates.
Hear Growlers Vice President, Brian Colopy talk about the promotion on WKZO: WKZO Emojersey Radio Interview and WWMT: Channel 3 Emojersey Story
We the people will decide what emojis the @kzoogrowlers put on their “emojersey”: https://t.co/Xcgil9IeI1 pic.twitter.com/V83Z2T6lj0
— Cut4 (@Cut4) February 16, 2016
Love it or hate it, thousands of Twitter users have weighed in with their opinion of the cartoon-covered jersey and the Growlers website has been flooded with votes from across the nation. Two sports sites have even started competing campaigns to have the eggplant and peach emojis featured on the jersey.
Only you can help us take the @kzoogrowlers emoji jersey and make it great. https://t.co/QdxpCiEixS pic.twitter.com/s9YtDfBz82
— SB Nation (@SBNation) February 15, 2016
Only you can force this baseball team to wear peach emojis https://t.co/l4Qg6riGKH pic.twitter.com/BMvQqtu57d
— The Verge (@verge) February 15, 2016
With all the viral attention and after numerous requests, the Growlers have made the jerseys available for pre-order on the team’s merchandise page: https://squareup.com/market/kalamazoo-growlers. Also, the team expanded the promotion Wednesday by adding a Emoji Hat to the night's festivities. The top emoji vote getter will be featured on the team's hat that night. Fans can pre-order this hat on the team's merchandise page as well.
Minor league baseball has long been known for its crazy promotions and the Growlers are excited to be a part of the buzz this season. Of course, they are no strangers to such attention, having won Ballpark Digest’s Promotion of the Year in 2014 for the Selfie Jersey, which was featured on Good Morning America, MLB Network, ESPN and many more national outlets.
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