In September, The Hive began what would become a close friendship with a small Ontario town and it’s special baseball lineage.
To help immortalize the 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Stars – the first all-Black team to win an Ontario Baseball Association Championship – the agency partnered with OLG and MLB to bring the team’s memory back to life through baseball’s popular video game, MLB The Show 22.
Now six months later, Chatham-Kent is embarking on a new baseball chapter by becoming the latest team to join the Intercounty Baseball League (IBL).
Team officials say the agency will be responsible for coming up with a name, visual identity and uniform designs for the new team, one it hopes to draw inspiration and homage from Chatham’s 1934 heroes and Chatham-Kent’s local baseball heritage.
“When I heard Chatham-Kent was getting a new team, my first call was to our friends at The Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society,” said Dustin Rideout, Chief Strategy Officer & Partner at The Hive, in a media release.
“Their partnership was an important part of our work with MLB, so having them on board again was an important consideration in taking on this project. Chatham-Kent is a special sport region in Canada’s history, so to help play a small part to keep the spotlight shining bright is an honour for us.”
You could say The Hive and it’s creators have deep bench when it comes to sport.
Not only does the agency work across OLG’s sport portfolio, but it’s members have worked with every major sport league in North America – from the Toronto Raptors historic We The North rebrand, to CCM’s most recent global efforts under the Hive’s co-ECD Sacha Ouimet’s watch.
“Although the scale of this team rebrand is smaller, the importance of following the same process we would with a global professional team remains the same,” Ouimet said, in a media release.
“A team is a representation of a communities values, passions and perspectives. Getting it right with the proper consultation is key to creating something that last.”
Team President and owner Dom Dinelle says they were thrilled when The Hive reached out to offer their services for this project.
“We were all huge fans of the work they did with the All-Stars and to have a firm of their expertise want to help create our team brand is exciting,” he said, in a press release.
“We see this as a great opportunity to both cement our baseball foundation here in Chatham-Kent, while honouring those who paved the way for us.”
The Hive has kicked off the brand project while the team will take the field for their inaugural season in 2024.
