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When fans flood out of Gainbridge Fieldhouse after a Pacers win, the chant is distinctive: “Yes ‘Cers.”
But you don’t just hear the phrase chanted along Pennsylvania Street, you see it plastered across the city. On the graphic stretching across the Artsgarden over Washington and Illinois streets, on blue-and-gold signs in storefront windows, and, of course, on Pacers merchandise—including the shirt that will be distributed to attendees of Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night.
For Todd Taylor, president of business operations for Pacers Sports & Entertainment, the phrase holds something deeper than team pride—it is evidence of a successful marketing campaign, rooted in authenticity.
The origin of “Yes ‘Cers” traces back to the Pacers’ in-house creative team, led by Creative Director Michael Benford. Taylor explained that the Pacers’ campaigns always start with research.
“What do we want to try and have our fans feel about the team?” Taylor said. “It has to be something the team will really embrace.”
The connection, while somewhat generic on the surface, was chosen intentionally for its catchiness, its potential to extend beyond a single season, and—crucially—its resonance with fans and players once it started circulating.
When engineering the campaign, the goal was to rise above crafting a fleeting, one-season slogan, Taylor said. They were aiming for something that would become a part of the team’s DNA—the way other catchphrases, like “Go Bucks” or “Roll Tide” do for their teams.
The phrase was inspired by a simple, common saying: yes, sir.
It’s something you’ve heard countless times, and in this context would be likely to represent a celebratory chant or affirmation. It’s also a play on words: Cutting down the team’s name to “‘Cers” just made sense, Taylor said.
By combining the team’s name with such a ubiquitous phrase, the team was able to create something fresh for fans to embrace.
“It’s when you start to hear it from your fans, and you hear it from your players and your front office and the media that you know everyone is connected,” he said.
It takes time for a campaign to truly resonate, he said, but they have already made significant progress. With the Pacers making its first NBA Finals run in 25 years, the energy around the team and its fanbase intensified the campaign’s popularity.
“The city—and the entire state—is really behind this team,” Taylor said. “(The campaign) took off more like a rocket than what we thought it would originally.”
While Taylor didn’t detail distribution strategy, the Pacers have made notable efforts to promote the slogan. Leading up to the Finals, the Pacers handed out 5,000 “Yes ‘Cers” swag bags to cars, gridlocking downtown streets. As of Thursday afternoon, the slogan was featured not only on the Artsgarden, but as a decal across the JW Marriott hotel, giving it a prominent place in the city’s skyline.
The hope with “Yes ‘Cers,” Taylor said, was to forge a bond between strangers that stretched beyond the arena. And it will undoubtedly be heard throughout Gainbridge Fieldhouse as the Pacers play their final home game of the season—which many fans hope will be the penultimate game of the championship series.
“It causes people coming here to really get behind the team and support it,” he said. “And certainly, we’re going to need that tonight.”
Game 6 of the NBA Finals tips off at 8:30 p.m. The Thunder is up 3-2 in the best-of-seven series.
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