Penn Athletic Department unveils new Web site, logo

In a move with more than just aesthetic implications, the Penn Athletic Department unveiled a redesigned homepage and logo on Tuesday afternoon.

The site, www.pennathletics.com, maintains the previous URL but is now hosted by New Media Networks instead of CollegeSports.com.

The logo features a white shield with a blue border just inside of the shield's edge, and the word "PENN" in white on top of a blue background at the top of the shield. A modernized version of the red and blue split "P" is in the middle of the logo.

"We wanted to find a way to better represent not only our collegiate athletics, but also find a more visible way to work with our sponsors," Associate Director of Athletic Communications Mat Kanan said.

"Also, with [the University] launching a new logo and everything, it was a great time to go with something different."

According to Associate Athletic Director for External Affairs Andy Bilello, the logo was chosen by a committee of coaches and administrators from the athletic department and the rest of the university.

Former university president Judith Rodin approved the logo change, with "representatives from her staff" on the committee.

Rodin "reviewed the logos at the final stage when the number of choices was down to a few," Bilello said. "This is an extension to athletics of what the university has been doing with its overall mark."

Penn Athletics retained the noted New York branding firm SME to create the new logo. SME has worked with many sports entities in recent years, including the National Hockey League, the United States Olympic Committee, and numerous other colleges and universities across the country.

Penn sports fans will note a number of practical changes to the website in addition to the visual ones.

The menu bar on the left side of the page is higher up than it was on the old website, and now includes direct links to information pages about Franklin Field and the Palestra.

The right side displays the master schedule, and clicking a tab to the right of the schedule displays overall and conference records for each of Penn's varsity teams.

According to Biello and Kanan, the biggest changes have yet to come.

As a result of leaving CollegeSports.com, streaming audio broadcasts of football and basketball games will now be offered free of charge.

Last season, fans had to pay a monthly fee for the Real.com College Sports Pass in order to listen to webcasts of football games and basketball games not broadcast on WXPN, which has a free online stream.

"We want to make audio accessible to as many Penn students, alumni, and fans as possible," Biello said. "So we're going to be working with our new web partner to do that, to provide the audiocasts free of charge."

Kanan said that the Athletic Department would also like to do live audio of other sports, such as baseball, soccer, and wrestling.

Last spring, there were a few webcasts of baseball games from Murphy Field, with play-by-play from the WXPN basketball crew.

"If we see an interest growing as we saw it growing at the end of last year, we would like to again branch [live audio] out to other sports," Kanan said.

He added that this would likely require bringing in new people with knowledge of those sports.

The one downside to leaving CollegeSports.com is that it may hamper the availability of men's basketball scores on the site's GameTracker service.

GameTracker is a live, Java-based scoring and commentary service which provides real-time box scores, game summaries, and shot charts.

But Kanan said that the new website would allow Penn to offer its own such service.

Lastly, Bilello noted that the website and logo redesigns have helped to foster a new relationship between the Athletic Department, the Business Services staff, and the Penn Bookstore, and that this might lead to some new athletics-related merchandise on the bookstore's shelves in the fall.

He would not offer any specifics as to what kind of merchandise that might be, however. "Its way too early to tell what will be on the shelves," he said.

"We're working to bring in some things that are going to be appealing to the campus community and and make them available for purchase."

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