Are We Going to Call Aggie Memorial "The Giant Overdraft?" NMSU has an On-Field Sponsor For First Time + Odds N Ends
Aggies Sell Sponsorship on Field + Former Aggies Thriving!
Hello All!
I want to thank you as always for reading AGGREGATOR, where I always have content for you to peruse about your AGGIES. Admittedly, summertime is hard to find stories, so call this “eco-mode James” for the moment, but you will see more commentaries, and you will see a lot more from me in many forms. Still pondering podcasts and Youtube videos. I do think I will have national sports content as well. I just feel I am ready to branch out beyond Las Cruces, but AGGREGATOR will always be A-1 in my heart.
My readers have been extraordinary in supporting this column, and with the amount of content creators that have come and gone in the time I have been here, safe to say, I am still needed here.
It’s funny when podcast hosts run out of stuff to talk about.
Anyhoo, this is a reader-supported publication, and I will be blunt. I could really use your subscription. As we head into 2025 football, I am going to be dedicating a lot of time into giving you things that you can’t get anywhere else. While I am not affiliated with NM State or a major media outlet, I have built this column to top 100 in the country by simply word of mouth and great content.
So if you are feeling good about this, $5 a month or 10 cents-ish a day for annual and you will be a supporter of James Baca and AGGREGATOR!
I got one big thing to talk about, and a bunch of small notes.
I was going to have a commentary about something monetary as well, but I need to fact-check one thing before I go full editorial mode.
Stay Tuned!
Aggie Memorial Stadium is Brought to you By…….
Aggies sell prime real estate on the field to NM Financial Institution
Since this Aggies story is technically about banking, I have to tell a bank story.
Now, as you have heard about 1289763 times since I started AGGREGATOR, I was a manager of a bank for a lot of years.
I was a teller while in college, and for a decade, I was a manager in charge of sales and new accounts at Bank of America in Las Cruces, NM. 13 years of banking. I became probably the best salesperson in this town, although the trade-off was about 50lbs and my hair.
People don’t realize that my job was more important than a branch manager’s job. A branch manager’s job is paperwork/operations. My goal was to make a big rich bank even richer!
It is a stressful job, but when you are in sales, you learn one thing… everything in life is a sale. From asking a girl on a date, to “do you want fries with that?,” everything is based around someone trying to convince someone else to do something.
But what the really good salespeople know how to do, and this is where I separate myself from the other bankers I met over the years, was they know how to garner trust by sacrificing a sale. There’s a couple of good banks and credit unions in this town, and there’s a ton of terrible ones (I won’t name which is which).
Sometimes when you are offering someone something, and their financial fit, and their routines are better off where they were at, or possibly at a bank that’s not yours, you can still go ahead and sell that person on you… or you can be a man and just be straight with them.
“Mr. Customer, I think based on what you told me, I think your perfect fit would be with XYZ bank.”
Man, those people love you when you are honest. Honesty is the best policy. Yes, I cost myself thousands of dollars over the years, but no one can ever say I was bad at my job or that I didn’t care.
After I left banking, I became “The Notorious Banker,” this guy who tells you all the secrets of the banking industry through the crazy 13 year journey I took. I helped people recover millions in lost money through fraud and excessive fees, and honestly COVID years were the years where I became a social media presence, because I was doing something no one else was, and that is giving people normal financial advice!
But at the same time, no matter how nice I was, I could not STAND when people would try to tell me things about their bank, why they liked their bank, and knowing they were just lying to me.
For instance, about one of the many credit unions in this town:
”My Credit Union is a non-profit. They don’t care about making money, they only care about the customers.”
Nope. Everyone has a sales goal. Everyone has quotas, and more importantly, everyone that works there DOESN’T want to be the one to say they didn’t grow business. In some senses CUs are a little tougher to be in charge of new business.
Non-Profits still generate revenue, and although profits are NOT the objective, they are most certainly there to generate $$$.
“My Credit Union Knows Me By Name”
Just a fun parlor trick. Banks/CUs train associates on eye contact and how to make you feel like you are known/cared about when you walk in. Those type of things when you learn how to do them can make you really successful.
Things like that don’t mean much to me when people said them, because most of the time, even at a bad bank, it’s all about the people who help you that make the experience palatable.
That said, when I left banking in 2018, Nusenda Credit Union, formerly New Mexico Educators Credit Union, was not in Las Cruces yet. They were in my hometown of Socorro and mostly up north, and they developed a good following of clients/members who trusted them. 2 of my old coworkers came from that bank, so I learned a lot about them.
My best friend James banked there, so I got a big whiff of them all the time.
And in all the years I was around them… I never had a bad thing to say about them. They did as well as many financial institutions that were much bigger. I always felt that way.
By the 2020s, they were in Las Cruces and still expanding even more, meaning people here got to see what I saw for the last two decades.
They partnered with NM State a couple years ago, and the relationship has thrived.
Today, it was announced they took the next step, and announced a partnership with NM State University to have a logo on the field at Aggie Memorial Stadium.
This is my artist rendering:
It will be the first such on-field logo in school history.
Van Wagner, who helps NM State with their branding and marketing helped close this deal which will bring an unknown amount of revenue into the school.
According to a press release, As part of the agreement, Nusenda's logo will appear on the football field at Aggie Memorial Stadium starting in the 2025 season. Fans can see the updated field during the Aggies' home opener against Bryant on Aug. 30.
This news was met with some people celebrating it as a big win for more money into the athletic program. Others were asking me if this was part of an overall naming rights deal.
The answer to that is no. Selling one bit of the field to a sponsor is just phase one I am sure in looking for another field partner, and possibly the naming rights of the stadium as a whole down the road. Van Wagner is certainly capable of being aware of the nuances of selling rights/sponsorships, so I anticipate more deals in the future.
Pretty soon we will look the CFL when it comes to ads. Haha, jk, although I think the Rouge is the most underrated play in all of football!
So, what does NM State get out of it?
Well… $$$ of course, and those traditionalists who don’t like seeing fields with logos on it, all I can say is how do you feel about all the advertisements between plays? I mean walking into any stadium is a giant commercial, so I never got why the field was so sacred like some Sumo Wrestling ring the referees throw salt in to cleanse it.
This is what 2020s business looks like. Monetize everything!
To be fair, Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs was named after gum 100 years ago, so using the field of play for advertising is hardly a new idea.
As someone who is always looking for sponsors and revenue to pay my bills, I welcome NM State thinking outside the box for more revenue. When you think about 1888 beer, the other products that bear NMSU’s name along with all other means of finding a buck, this is just another way to do so, and trust me, The Notorious Banker, the most well-off people I ever met, never let a dollar go by the wayside.
As for Nusenda…. I am open for business as well. :) Call me.
Couple of quick notes before I go:
Hooten Assistant Rusty Elmore Leaves for Jacksonville State
In a move that caught myself and others off-guard, Rusty Elmore, who was on the bench for Coach Jason Hooten during the most recent season, has left the program to take a job as assistant coach to Ray Harper and NMSU’s CUSA Rival, Jax State.
Elmore makes the move to the state of Alabama after a 17-15 season for the Aggies, that had some ups and downs.
Before that, Elmore led Garden City to back-to-back winning seasons, including a 21-9 campaign in 2022-23 that ended with a national ranking and five players moving on to Division I programs. He previously guided Colby to a 27-5 record and a Region VI title in 2020, earning Jayhawk West Coach of the Year honors.
Elmore has also coached at Moberly Area and Vincennes, helping both programs to national tournament runs. He began his coaching career at Lindsey Wilson and Union College and has NCAA Division II experience at Kentucky Wesleyan.
Before coaching, Elmore spent eight years in sports media and holds degrees from Middle Tennessee State and Western Kentucky.
Elmore is familiar with a lot of these schools in our conference, so no doubt.
AGGREGATOR wishes him the best of luck (except when NM State plays them)
These last two bites are more for people who care about people even after they leave Las Cruces.
Canaan Yarro, who played Center at NM State last year and was rated as the best player on the NCAA Football 25 video game for the Aggies has found a landing spot at Missouri State…as a coach.
While it is a grad assistant job, to get his foot in the door for coaching at his young age tells me a lot. A leader for the Aggies last year on the field, and some would say Centers are basically coaches on the field as well, and now about to impart knowledge to the lineman of CUSA’s newest team, Yarro is starting a rewarding journey in the Show Me State.
Congrats to him!
Finally, sent to me by a reader of AGGREGATOR….
In the middle of graduation season all over the country, there are people in their caps and gowns listening to a lot of commencement speeches and some are good, some are bad. Some are controversial, and some might be a little cheesy at times.
But in Shiprock, NM last week, Shiyazh Pete, NM State Graduate and former OL, who is going to be suiting up for the University of Kentucky next season was the commencement speaker at Shiprock HS.
Courtesy Turkeyboy Photography:
Now, I have probably gotten about 40 emails/DMs that were negative about Pete leaving for a P4 school. They got exhausting to read after a while. But you got to remember one thing:
Pete is an NM State Grad
Pete is a role model to tons of Native People in this state
And with an NIL Deal reportedly in the six figures, he is a college grad and successful at his line of work coming from little Shiprock, NM
While he will not be suiting up for us next year, his degree means he will always be an Aggie and to be in your early 20s and lived enough life to be able to speak at a high school graduation when you were just there yourself a few years prior…It’s amazing!
Congrats to him and to all graduates!
Thanks for reading. I will see you real soon with more.
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James Baca