Disco Turkeys off to hot start since March team launch

Ever since the Disco Turkeys’ logo unveiling event at Winston-Salem’s Truist Stadium in late March, media inquiries have been pouring in.

The team has already appeared in front of all four TV networks in the Triad and been featured in national articles by SB Nation, Barstool, Axios and several leading sports industry publications. 

The team's name and logo announcement has been re-tweeted more than 1,000 times, including by Fox Sports MLB.

“We thought we’d receive some attention, maybe even some nationally, but the level and speed surprised us,” said Disco Turkeys team president and co-owner Greg Sullivan. “What we think caused the response was we were able to thread the needle of being viewed as a team whose look was achieved with all the intention of a much bigger team, while also retaining all the character and charm of a strong grassroots-type organization. We're a bunch of fun-loving people, and we think people picked up on that. 

"Our games are going to be incredible. We're playing in a great minor league stadium and people in the area will have something else fun to do outdoors on dates the Winston-Salem Dash are out on their road trips.”

The team, similar in some ways to a trendy touring rock band, sold through its first batch of hundreds of t-shirts on its website's Fowl Territory Team Store within 23 hours of launching the name. After switching to preorder and quickly selling hundreds more items, they've since transitioned to allowing local partner downtown Winston-Salem’s Machine Gun Graphics to handle their fulfillment as they continue to expand merchandise options and plan to soon offer international shipping. New trucker hats were posted on the team store for preorder this week, and much more is in the works.

Inaugural roster filling up

Heading into their launch not long ago, the Disco Turkeys had already put together the nucleus of a roster, despite the challenges of having their name kept secret and, at the time, no public website. Since the launch, however, many unsigned commitments have rushed to ink with the club. They've also in recent days had players and coaches from nationally-ranked Division I baseball programs reach out.

"We knew the Triad area was saturated with great baseball talent," Disco Turkeys head coach Kirk Cabana said. "Now that so many more area players and coaches have a full perspective of what we're about following the launch, it’s really opened up recruiting." 

Cabana said the final roster is expected to be at 30 players and will include players at all levels from JUCO to Division I.