United States Sports University
Telling the Story of America’s Sports University
The United States Sports Academy (USSA) was founded in the 1970s to provide students the chance to pursue an education in sport, bringing together leaders from all disciplines and from around the world.
01
Shaping the Brand Strategy
Our goal was clear: take the idea of “a whole university dedicated to sports” and make the brand story and identity as exciting as that proposition. The experience for students, faculty, staff, and alumni was special. We knew that through research and strategy, we could find the right way to share that excitement.
Awareness vs Impact: Two Different Stories
There was very little recognition for the brand among prospective students. Several local students even said they had never heard of the school, despite growing up only a few miles away. Yet for those who did enroll, the experience was overwhelmingly positive, driven by two core strengths: a highly specialized educational focus and an exceptional level of personal care provided by The United States Sports Academy (USSA).
Specialized Education for Uniquely Focused Students
Students were certainly focused on building their practical skills and career readiness, but some of them we spoke with hadn’t even considered a career in sports until they found USSA. The ability of the faculty, coaches, and admissions team to immediately welcome them and show those possibilities was a huge difference maker when students were selecting their school.
Key Insights
As we spoke with more students, we found that the specialization of the curriculum was certainly a motivator. But what most engaged and excited them was the shared culture that studying in this type of environment created. Every person there, no matter how different, felt connected to those around them because of their shared love for sport and the shared values that sports can help teach us.
Before coming here, my professors would almost look down on me because I was an athlete or not take me as seriously... It is meaningful that all my professors were athletes and that they seem to understand what life as an athlete is like.
Student Interview
Transfer Student in the BA Sports Management program,
What’s in a Name
While messaging and visuals clearly needed work to properly position the university going forward, we continued to encounter one more sticking point that might halt our work before it even got off the ground, the name.
While USSA had been founded in the style of a military academy, it has no affiliation with the U.S. military, a reality that the name clouded for many prospective students. The word “academy” connoted different things to different audiences, but none immediately thought of a four-year university with post-grad programs. Even if it felt like a piece of history, we found indisputably that the name had to change.
We recommended that the institution simply rebrand itself as what it had been all along: The United States Sports University.
Crafting a Strategic Position, with an Exciting Idea
With this understanding in mind, we articulated a simple but strong brand positioning statement, accompanied by a brand anthem built around the unique way that The United States Sports University (USSU) connected its students to people who share their passion.
02
A Brand Identity Reborn
With a new name, new insights, and a fresh perspective on the story we were setting out to tell, we turned our attention to the brand identity, starting with updating the logo and stretching all the way to designing new signs for campus.
Elevating the Logo
The new mark used two elements to bring the strategy to life, an elegant and academic word mark, signaling prestige and timelessness, alongside a symbolic monogram that represented a close knit community, the fluidity of athletes in motion, and the shared passion of athletes everywhere.
An Identity Rooted in Art and Motion
During our visits to USSU, our designers were inspired by the school’s historic art collection, a point of pride on campus. We drew from this foundation to introduce expressive, fine art–inspired brush strokes into the brand identity. These strokes became a visual metaphor for the motion, fluidity, and momentum of athletes in their element, tying the university’s artistic legacy to the energy and spirit of sport.
03
Audience Specific Messaging
Creating a unifying narrative and look for the University was the first step, but how would that connect with diverse audiences, spanning generations, degree programs, and the whole country when it came to marketing? We tackled those big questions by creating an actionable, audience specific messaging strategy, giving USSU the tools to keep its marketing on target with the new strategy.
The message and image that we now project are game changers for us. In the process of our work with you we changed our name, added athletic teams, added new degrees, modified our website, locked down school colors, and advanced core and creative messaging.
United States Sports University
Dr Steve Condon, PhD, University President
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