WVU Baseball’s Biggest Win May Have Been the Audience It Reached

The more games you win, the more eyeballs are on your brand. The West Virginia baseball team went from a cool story to being the team that everyone in the country wanted to watch. Could they actually do it? Could they take a national championship home in the first-ever trip to Omaha?

Unfortunately, they fell short of that goal, but did make it to the semifinals, being one of the final four teams standing in all of college baseball. The postseason run they had was not only a great recruiting tool for the program, but it put a national spotlight on the university, partially due to the tradition of singing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” after each win going viral.

“Our latest information indicates there have 155 MILLION views & impressions of our fans/team singing Country Roads after wins this baseball postseason,” WVU athletic director Wren Baker tweeted. “Not only does that bring visibility to WVU Baseball, but to our beloved University & the great state of WV! Hoping a lot of those 155 million find a way to visit wild and wonderful West Virginia!”

The Mountaineers have had that tradition in place since Rich Rodriguez’s first stint as the head football coach at WVU, but for some reason, it feels like hardly anyone knew about it. It really caught on the first time ESPN let the singing take over following their win over Kentucky in the regional.

But that tradition wasn’t the only thing that boosted the brand. Playing the games did too, of course.

As a matter of fact, West Virginia’s first game against North Carolina, the one on Sunday, was the most-watched game from opening weekend at the College World Series this year and was the third-most-watched pre-Finals game ever, reeling in an average of two million viewers and hitting a peak of 2.3 million, per ESPN.

“Half the battle here for the last decade is essentially marketing,” head coach Steve Sabins said a couple of weeks ago. “You’re trying to show people how wonderful this state, this university, this community is, and then you start winning ball games, and you try to put that on display. That’s where our media team, our administration, is so critical, like highlighting what this place is because this is a special atmosphere, special ballpark, special team.”

Mission accomplished. Recruits now know what West Virginia baseball is about and how much it means to the people of the state. As Sabins once said, “This team is the New York Yankees of West Virginia.”

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