Congratulations to Binghamton University’s Baxter Bearcat, voted New York’s favorite college mascot in SUNY Mascot Madness 2014!
Through hundreds of thousands of online votes, Baxter of Binghamton University has been crowned champion of the highly-contested SUNY Mascot Madness 2014, just slightly beating The College at Brockport‘s Ellsworth Eagle in the final round of the bracket-style competition. Baxter collected 27,481 points by way of online votes and social media bonus points; Ellsworth defeated Baxter in an overwhelming fashion on social media, but could not keep pace in the poll and lost by just over 1%.
Chancellor Zimpher presents SUNY #MascotMadness Cup to @binghamtonu‘s Baxter Bearcat with @RepRichardHanna pic.twitter.com/r8sOu0b6qq
— State U of New York (@SUNY) April 29, 2014
The competition brought hundreds of thousands of supporters to SUNY.edu, a perfect compliment to the launch of the new website in March. This is a 33% increase over the time during Mascot Madness 2013 last year, ultimately engaging more prospective and current students, alumni, and community members than ever before. In addition, more than 16,000 tweets bearing @SUNY #MascotMadness were sent; 19,100 “Likes” of the competition pages on Facebook were registered; and more than a dozen television, radio, and newspaper stories were generated across New York State.
Thank you to all who participated—and welcome to blog.SUNY.edu, your source for all-things #SUNY!
A little recap of the first four rounds:
- Round 1 saw a record 44 mascots compete. Over 100,000 votes were cast from more than 45 countries across the globe–each in the spirit of New York public education.
- Round 2 brought 16 winners of Round 1 to face off in pursuit of the 2014 title. Through sweat, feathers, and dance, the Elite Eight SUNY Mascot Madness 2014 competitors were crowned.
- Round 3 saw each of the eight finalists rise to the occasion; more than 70,000 votes were put forth by supporters to select the Final Four!
- Round 4 introduced social voting, which ended up being the deciding factor for the SUNY New Paltz’s Hugo and College at Brockport’s Ellsworth matchup (Ellsworth flew on top by less than one percentage point) and helped drive Binghamton University’s Baxter to claim his spot against SUNY Cortland’s Blaze.
Update: Photos were added on April 30, 2014 following the trophy ceremony in Washington, D.C. with Chancellor Zimpher and Representative Richard Hanna.
YAY for Baxter!!! Kudos to Brockport – you may be a smaller school, but you really gave Baxter a tough run and showed great team effort. Good time had by all!!!