After releasing a video Thursday promoting the “Gold Diggers” as the team’s alternate identity, the Sacramento River Cats canceled the campaign Friday.
“Our recent marketing campaign for an alternative identity clearly missed the mark,” said the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A team in an email to SFGate. “Our intention was to creatively reference the rich history of Sacramento and gold country, but our approach was wrong, and we are sorry for the mistake. We will no longer be using this identity.”
Advertisement
The team deleted the video, which featured two women in Sacramento with dollar signs flashing in their eyes upon seeing a player, from its social media accounts after facing backlash for “1950s-era tropes about women only seeing dollar signs when sizing up men,” according to Sacramento Bee opinion writer Robin Epley, who reviewed the now-deleted video. The team also removed a page about the “Gold Diggers” campaign from its website.
The original plan was for the team — which currently shares its home, Sutter Health Park, with the Athletics — to wear the black-and-gold pinstriped Gold Diggers uniforms five times this season, starting with a game on April 19 against the Salt Lake Bees.
“Inspired by the regional history of the California Gold Rush, this new identity offers a connection to the significant impact of this era when Sacramento grew as the closest major city to the gold fields,” the River Cats said in a news release sent to the Sacramento Bee.
The team faced criticism when it leaned into what it called “playful and cheeky elements” of its short-lived alternate identity, which caused the River Cats to strike a nerve instead of gold.
(Photo of Sutter Health Park on March 23 during an exhibition game between the Sacramento River Cats and San Francisco Giants: Scott Marshall / Getty Images)
