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MegaCorp executives have seen many, if not all, jokes about their mysterious and somewhat sinister company name. Over the past few days — with the MegaCorp logo plastered to the front of soon-to-be champ Brian Harman’s hat — there have been jokes about the brand’s motivations circulating on Golf Twitter and beyond. take samples:
“They apparently collect sharks with lasers attached to their heads.”
“Try to capture the cute little ski towns in Hallmark movies”
Some kind of joke or applause by Harman for ignoring the sponsors.
Monday morning, hosts of the popular Barstool Sports podcast “Pardon My Take” Join the funbobbing on the Harman shepherd for nearly five minutes.
“Who knows what that is,” Eric Sullenberger, aka PFT Commenter, told host Dan Katz, aka Big Cat.
“It’s a shipping company. I looked it up,” Katz said. “I was like, ‘This looks badass.'” But I’ll just say this, MegaCorp, you do more than ship. There is no way. Like, that’s the coolest company name ever. mega corp? “
Sullenberger said, “I saw MegaCorp and I was like, This is a corporation that Superman is trying to stop from taking over the world.”
Katz later added, “I’m kind of bashing MegaCorp, but it’s 100 percent a place of jealousy, because whatever guy decided to call it MegaCorp, that guy rocks. It’s a total rock-guys moment.”
This guy was actually a team of guys and girls.
When MegaCorp CEO Ryan Legge and his wife, Denise, founded the Wilmington, NC-based company in 2009, they wanted a name that was “short, easy to remember, and catchy,” Katie Braskett, MegaCorp’s director of marketing, told GOLF.com Monday morning.
“They went by a lot of different names, but unfortunately a lot of catchy short names were taken,” she said. “Someone finally threw in the name ‘MegaCorp’—it’s short, it’s eye-catching, it kind of drums up some feel.” What is this? And it was not taken.”
With that, MegaCorp was born.
Many golf fans may not have been aware of the company — which provides intermodal freight and logistics arrangements across the US — but that began to change when Harman made his way up the leaderboards at Royal Liverpool. With good play comes broadcasting and exposure on social media, and in The Open Championship, no one has played better than Harman.
TV time on Harman’s hat has not only led to light-hearted jokes on social media, but also many viewers looking for company.
According to Braskett, search traffic to MegaCorp’s site increased by 5,000 percent last week, and “tags on social media and social activity are higher than ever.”
The company has seen spikes of interest before when Harman was in contention, Praskett said. “But that long time on the air, that much publicity on Sundays is new to us, and it’s very exciting to see the impact,” she said. “We know people are going to scoff at our name, but once they get to know us and realize what we do and who is behind the name, we’re glad more people know about MegaCorp and the logistics industry in general.”
Harman first became involved with MegeCorp in 2017 when he met some company representatives at a First Tee event following the Wells Fargo tournament, in Charlotte, N.C. “Our team has succeeded and is just getting hit,” Braskett said. “He’s a wonderful, down-to-earth person.” She added that Harman “was looking for care at the time. Fortunately, our CEO thought it was a great idea.”
MegaCorp employees also seem supportive of the partnership. On Sunday, as Harman made his way around a rainy Liverpool Royal Airport, a crowd of MegaCorp employees gathered at the office to beat their man down. Lunch was served. Mimosas and Bloody Marys, too. “This is a special moment,” Braskett said. “Even if he didn’t win, we wanted to be together to see that.”
Harman’s deals with the company were one-year agreements, Braskett said, but “as the years went on, our relationship strengthened.” MegaCorp also has another PGA Tour pro on its books: JT Poston, who signed with the company last year.
When asked about the lewd rhetoric of the company’s name, Braskett said, “We’re kind of laughing with that, because I understand, like, MegaCorp is coming. But once you get to know us and the people behind the fun name, we are really cool, hard working and caring people. We’re not trying to take over America in some evil way, we’re just trying to make sure everything is done in a ‘huge’ way, in the best possible way.”
Any plans to re-brand?
“We’ll keep it MegaCorp,” she said. “I like to say ‘MegaCorp Logistics’ when we’re talking to new people, but it’s a little more sloppy on the hat when you see ‘MegaCorp’ and a little ‘logistics’ underneath. So we like to just be ‘MegaCorp’ – it makes people wonder and makes them look up to us, and that helps us increase our online presence and traffic. We kind of like a little bit of mystery.”