Major League Arts??

Like several of my fellow classmates, I also attended the Quality of Life committee meeting last week and listened to Thom Mariner's presentation on the idea of branding Cincinnati by promoting its amazing depth and range of arts and culture experiences. Thom's presentation was very convincing and made a great case for showcasing Cincinnati's arts to people outside of Cincinnati. I won't go into the details of that presentation because my classmates have done such a great job of describing it already.

There was one part of the meeting that did stand out to me, however. This was when councilwoman Quinlivan explained that some people had the idea that Cincinnati should be branded as the "Birthplace of Baseball". She suggested tying in Cincinnati's baseball history with our arts scene and promoting that Cincinnati has "Major League Arts". I don't think that this is the correct way to frame a message about Cincinnati's arts and culture to the rest of the world. Using sports lingo to promote the arts seems like the wrong approach to me because in the battle of sports vs. arts, unfortunately sports will almost always win with the majority of the U.S. population. Attending a sporting event is a completely different experience than attending an arts event, and the customers of the two different types of events often value different things.

Overall, I don't think that tying a sports reference to Cincinnati's arts will be helpful in promoting them. It muddles our message and doesn't help us to focus on the diversity and quality of the arts in Cincinnati, which is a major strength for the city.