The Heat this week invested in e-sports team Misfits, with Heat Exec VP & CMO Michael McCullough saying they are "going to kind of integrate Misfits into everything we're doing," according to Zorine Te of YAHOO ESPORTS. McCullough said, "We’ve already incorporated the Heat colors into the Misfits to welcome them into the brand in kind of a seamless sort of way. You will see us not only create their merchandise, but we will also give their fans a chance to engage with the Misfits, cross-promote those people both on Heat social media, Heat website, Heat broadcast." McCullough added, “We’re certainly not going to shove the Misfits’ brand down the Heat fans’ throat, they’re going to know about the connection.” The Heat did "not feel the need to rebrand Misfits with a name that may be more aligned with the NBA team." McCullough said that the team "had taken a liking" to the Misfits' rabbit logo. McCullough: "We both felt that there was brand equity in the Misfits brands. In particular the character, the rabbit. We really felt that we wanted to keep that. We all like it, we all think it’s both interesting and kind of iconic… we didn’t want the Misfits fans to think ‘the big bad NBA has come in and they’ve taken over our team.’ We want to seamlessly integrate and we want to keep all the things that are great about the Misfits and just make them better” (ESPORTS.YAHOO.com, 1/12).
