While yesterday's meeting of the external affairs committee of the Penn trustees was not held at the Palestra or Franklin Field, Penn athletics was still a major topic of discussion.
Marie Witt and Sharlene Sones of Penn Business Services presented a report on athletic branding to the committee, giving the group of alumni a status report after undergoing a major rebranding last summer.
Along with New York-based branding company SME, the athletic department has already rolled out a new logo, mascot and Web site.
Witt said that more changes are on the way.
One is a redesign of the Palestra center court, which Witt says has already been designed to reflect the new Penn brand but is not yet funded.
The new Penn logos have already been applied to the Palestra press box and scorer's table.
Center court currently reads "UP Palestra" and does not have any sort of Penn logo.
The playing surface at the University's other historic venue, Franklin Field, was fully redesigned in the summer of 2004, with Sprinturf installed as the playing surface and the new athletics logo on the 50-yard line.
Witt noted that field was originally designed to have the new Penn athletics shield, but a change was made to the "split 'P'" because the football team has a better record with that logo printed on the field.
Another change that Quakers sports fans can look forward to is an increase in merchandise.
This is due to the fact that the University is experiencing a sharp increase in the purchasing of athletics merchandise.
In fiscal year 2005, which ended July 1, Penn sold roughly $100,000 of athletics merchandise. That was roughly 3.4 percent of the $2.9 million of merchandise sold by the Penn Bookstore.
Since July, the University has seen an 11 percent increase in its sales of athletics-related merchandise.
It is unclear, however, whether this increase in sales is a direct result of the rebranding efforts.
Witt noted the increased amount of merchandise already on sale. Earlier this fall, the University starting selling new merchandise, including replica football jerseys.
Committee chair and NBC foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell also noted that the increased sales could also be a result of an increase in the quality of merchandise.
Recently, the University started putting athletic logos on premium materials like Under Armour.
