Editor, Daily Nexus,

Last Saturday, UCSB’s men’s basketball game versus the University of the Pacific (UOP) was broadcast on FOX Sports West. I attended the game but watched the taped version when I got home. What brings about this letter is the lack of marketing commercials about UCSB. We did not have any promo pieces during the commercials and UOP had six.

We are allowed three commercial spots during the event to praise, represent and promote our school, but there was no effort to utilize it. So instead, UOP took the opportunity to promote their school six times. This is ridiculous. Not only does it show a lack of pride for the institution, its students and its alumni. But it also shows a lax attitude to those who respect, honor and support the school. I have spoken to several alumni that are sick and tired of the total lack of passion, professionalism, commitment and accountability of the Athletic Dept. and especially the marketing department.

I cannot believe that no one in the marketing department would not have known or worked with FOX Sports to put together a wonderful promo piece about UCSB and our great achievements in recent years with Nobel Prize winners and the great new buildings on the campus.

I receive phone calls from alumni and e-mails saying they were more embarrassed about this oversight than the game itself.

Can someone please tell me and other alumni how this could happen? How could a university like UCSB not take advantage of this opportunity to showcase its success story in academics and athletics?

I have watched many games on FOX Sports this year, most featuring other Big West schools and other regional colleges like Pepperdine, University of San Diego and Loyola Marymount, and each and every one of them have amazing promo pieces about their school.

This is yet another example of how completely inept the marketing department at UCSB truly is.

I have submitted this letter to Mark Patton at the Santa Barbara News-Press and I hope he will write an article about this. I am also forming a UCSB Gaucho Loco Alumni booster group, which will have a standing president and committee and will be expecting a great deal more from our Athletic Dept. when it comes to marketing.

You will be hearing from this group once it is set and we will be asking for quality meetings with the Athletic Dept. to make sure the people who are supposed to promote UCSB are doing their job. We will be like a lobby group with the sole purpose of giving support and ideas to the department.

This lack of passion and organization is unacceptable and a university of the status of UCSB should be able to do a better job marketing itself and its sports. As one alum wrote me, “Sitting through all the UOP commercials while not seeing a single UCSB commercial reinforced my belief that UCSB administrators do not take advertising, branding and name recognition seriously at all. In fact, I’m not even sure they understand the concept at all in relation to athletics.”