The Winston-Salem Dash are following in the storied footsteps of baseball teams who have featured annoying and destructive pests in their brands. Like the erstwhile Sugar Land Skeeters, Piedmont Boll Weevils, and Savannah Sand Gnats before them, the Dash will play as the Winston-Salem Tobacco Beetles for one game this season. The team announced the brand and an accompanying logo created by Brandiose this week.
The team is acutely aware that tobacco beetles are a thorn in the side of North Carolina’s agriculture industry, wreaking havoc on tobacco and other crops. To that end, they are donating $1 of every ticket purchased to the game to North Carolina Agriculture Education.
“We’re trying to not so much highlight the fact it has decimated crops or things like that, just more leaning into the history,” said Travis Knisely, the team’s graphic designer.
The logo features a beetle driving a mid-century Model T Ford, evoking an era when North Carolina’s tobacco industry was at its height.
“It’s a nod to the heyday of Winston-Salem, the ’30s and the ’20s, when the tobacco industry was booming,” Knisely said. “That era of Winston-Salem was rich in history and rich in economy.”
The Tobacco Beetles will take the field on the Dash’s Salute to North Carolina night, August 9, 2024.
