For a Minnesota minor league baseball team known for its history of outlandish promotions, the idea of naming its old live pig mascot after the weight-loss drug Ozempic made perfect sense.
The St. Paul Saints soon learned that not everyone was amused by the pig’s name, Ozempig, or by the team’s posting of a backstory about the pig’s embarrassment about gaining weight and vowing to trying to stay fit.
Almost immediately after the team announced the name this week ahead of Saturday’s opening game, criticism poured in on social media from people concerned about the name, calling it hurtful and insensitive.
Sean Aronson, the Saints’ vice president and director of media relations, said the team just wanted a fun, timely name for its pig when it chose Ozempig from nearly 2,300 entries in the “Name the Pig Contest.” Team officials were shocked that so many people found the name offensive, Aronson said.
“In today’s world, people don’t want to be made smaller, they don’t want to be made to feel a certain way and I’m not going to tell them that their feelings are wrong,” Aronson said. “But I can tell you that there was no malice, there was no malice, there was never even a discussion in the room when we discussed the name: Hey, this might offend some people.”
Ozempic is one of many new medications that have effectively helped people lose significant weight. The drugs can be expensive depending on insurance coverage, but have attracted a lot of attention in part because they have been promoted by celebrities and on social media sites.
The Saints’ pig is a beloved participant at the team’s games played at CHS Field in downtown St. Paul, about 10 miles from the Minnesota Twins’ much larger home in downtown Minneapolis. The animal delivers balls to the referee and becomes noticeably bigger over the summer – so much bigger in fact that halfway through the season another young pig takes over the duties.
Naming the pig mascot after the high-profile drug seemed like a no-brainer for the Saints, a Triple-A affiliate of the Twins that has a long history of fun promotions, like attaching a fan to a Velcro wall in the outfield and holding races in the field. the infield between people dressed as giant eyeballs.
With such past stunts in mind, some Saints fans defended the name as a pun and nothing more.
Aronson said team officials understood why some people were outraged and considered making a name change, but decided to stick with Ozempig.
“We knew how we originally came up with the name and we’re good with it, but we did talk about it and decided we’re going to keep it,” he said.