{"id":87,"date":"2025-10-13T16:49:48","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T16:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/87\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T16:49:48","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T16:49:48","slug":"univ-of-central-florida-should-change-name-to-include-orlando","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/87\/","title":{"rendered":"Univ. of Central Florida should change name to include \u2018Orlando\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-colleges \">UCF should \u201cchange its name to the University of Orlando \u2026 or Orlando University,\u201d according to Mike Bianchi of the ORLANDO SENTINEL. The school should \u201cdrop the \u2019Central,\u2019 embrace the city, and stop pretending that the rest of the country knows what or where \u2018Central Florida\u2019 is.\u201d UFL co-owner Mike Repole, a UCF donor though not an alum, said, \u201cThis university should be known as the University of Orlando. Nobody outside of this state knows where Central Florida is, just as nobody knows where Central Jersey is or Central Iowa or Central New Hampshire.\u201d Repole: \u201cThe recruiting process begins when kids are 7 or 8 years old and they go to Disney World and create great memories. And then when they grow up, they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my God, Orlando, I want to go back there.\u2019 Changing the name would be a great branding and marketing tool for the university.\u201d Bianchi noted Repole lives in Orlando and is \u201cinvested in this city.\u201d UCF is \u201cone of the largest universities in the nation,\u201d and has a football program that has won three New Year\u2019s Six Bowl Games and gone \u201ctoe-to-toe with the sport\u2019s bluebloods.\u201d But even as the school\u2019s brand \u201chas grown, the confusion persists.\u201d Bianchi: \u201c\u2019Central\u2019 could be anywhere. Orlando is somewhere.\u201d Some fans will \u201csay the \u2018UCF\u2019 brand is too established to change now.\u201d They will \u201cpoint to years of marketing, the undefeated seasons, and the \u2018Charge On\u2019 culture build around those three letters.\u201d Bianchi: \u201cChange the name, keep winning football games, and watch how quickly people adapt\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/2025\/10\/10\/ucf-university-of-orlando-buddy-dyer-mayor-mike-repole-mike-bianchi-commentary\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/2025\/10\/10\/ucf-university-of-orlando-buddy-dyer-mayor-mike-repole-mike-bianchi-commentary\/\">ORLANDO SENTINEL, 10\/10<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UCF should \u201cchange its name to the University of Orlando \u2026 or Orlando University,\u201d according to Mike Bianchi&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[143,142,139,141,140],"class_list":{"0":"post-87","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-orlando","11":"tag-orlando-headlines","12":"tag-orlando-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}