Baylor Announces “Gold Out” Games

Yesterday Baylor announced this fall’s Go Gold Fan Initiative, calling for fans to “visually unify” by wearing gold at various sporting events throughout the year. The announcement provides some detail:

The Gold Factor was contagious at the 2022 Sugar Bowl, and it is time to bring the same energy back to Baylor’s campus. Each of Baylor’s 19 sports will Go Gold this year in their conference home opener. Baylor Athletics has made a commitment to providing Gold giveaways at these games, varying from Gold poms, Gold rally towels, to apparel.

“We want to create something special for Baylor fans to look forward to each year,” said Jovan Overshown, Senior Associate Athletic Director for External Operations. “Our goal is to create an atmosphere that packs a physical punch. From the moment the opposing team takes center stage, we want them to feel the presence of our fans. When you have 45,000 fans in Gold, the visual impact is striking and powerful. Gold is a representation of Preparing Champions for Life. It’s the Gold Standard we expect our student-athletes to live by and we hope our fans will join us in this visual rally and wear Gold throughout the year.”

The Baylor Athletics Twitter Account gave the first four big dates for the Gold Out for Baylor fans:

Additionally, the announcement states that Baylor will ramp up their gold apparel offerings this fall, making a number of items available via the Baylor Bookstore which are available for purchase or pre-order online, and will be available in-person for the first time at the Meet the Bears event on Saturday, August 27. Offerings at present include t-shirts from both Nike and Homefield. Here’s hoping they really ramp up the offerings.

Last year they announced the Gold Out for the Iowa State game and, if you recall, the results were not great. Baylor called for fans to wear gold to the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day as well, and the results were FAR better than they were for the Iowa State game last fall. That provided a glimmer of hope that we may be able to pull this off.

I wrote about the Gold Out at length in the aftermath of the Iowa State game last year, putting down some of my thoughts about how to increase fan buy-in into the event itself. I suggested increasing marketing for the Gold Out, starting even before the season begins, a massive increase in gold apparel availability, and the ample use of giveaways to bolster buy-in to the actual event. Yesterday’s announcement appears to signal all three things. We’ll see if they keep it up moving into the season, and hopefully they provide a wide range of apparel at varying price points to satisfy the majority of fan tastes. And I really hope that we get to see 45,000 Growl Towels in McLane Stadium against Oklahoma State on October 1.

I for one am very excited about this. The Gold Out looked GREAT inside the Superdome for the Sugar Bowl this past year. If we can pack fans into McLane all wearing gold, it will be an impressive sight on the television, no doubt. That said, opinions are fairly divided on the Gold Out, even on what constitutes “gold” as a color for Baylor, so there remains more work to be done before this goal is achieved.

What do you think? Are you excited about the Gold Out? Dusting off your gold apparel/getting new gear? Grumbling? Let us know your reaction in the comments!