The Fresno Grizzlies, a minor league baseball team known for Fresno Tacos alter ego, held a press conference at Chukchansi Park last month to announce the acquisition of the Taco Emoji.
In a news release, Fresno Grizzlies general manager Derek Franks celebrated the recent deal.
“This is another flag in the ground to pay homage to taco culture in the Central Valley, and cement Fresno as the Taco Capital of this country,” he said in a statement. “We will be very good keepers of our newly adopted emoji – in fact, we encourage as many people as possible to use it. It’s available to borrow from us for free at all times, forever. We wouldn’t have been able to live with ourselves if Taco Bell had ended up adopting it. Now it’s home where it belongs in Fresno.”
To acquire the Taco Emoji, the Triple-A squad made a $5,000 tax-deductible donation to The Unicode Consortium, a non-profit organization that “enables people around the world to use computers in any language.” Donations help “fund the development of fonts, keyboards and input methods for under-resourced languages.”
The taco emoji was introduced to the world in Unicode 8.0 in response to a Change.org petition from Taco Bell. However, if Taco Bell (or any other restaurant) wants to become the Emoji’s official owner, it will cost $1 million, according to the Grizzlies.
“While it’s thrilling to preserve the emoji for the Valley, if someone wants it back for a million bucks, we’d sure put that money to good use in the place that does tacos better than anywhere else on Earth,” Grizzlies director of marketing Sam Hansen said in a statement.
The Grizzlies have pledged to direct $995,000 of the proceeds from the text-based taco’s resale toward Central Valley charities, initiatives through the Fresno Grizzlies Community Fund, and The Unicode Consortium. Five thousand dollars would be reserved for wardrobe upgrades for Fresno’s mascot Cilantro Gomez. There’s also a bonus for fans who visit the Fresno Grizzlies Team Store. Fans that post a tweet including #FresnoTacos and the taco emoji will receive a 15 percent discount off Fresno Tacos apparel.
This season, the Grizzlies will continue their tradition by donning Fresno Tacos jerseys for any home game that falls on a Tuesday.
