Sunday Morning Uni Watch

By Phil Hecken

Week three in the NCAA football schedule doesn’t usually make for the best of matchups, as we’re past the big opening games, and we haven’t really settled into the conference matchups. Sure, there’s that Third Saturday in September game and the Holy War, but for the most part, there are still a bunch of the Little Sisters of the Poor showing up in big stadia for a payday and a beatdown.

But…that doesn’t mean there were not some uni machinations on the field. So, for that and more, I now turn this portion of the post to my buddy Terry Duroncelet, who will take us through the…

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Sunday Morning Uni Watch
By Terry Duroncelet

So my weekend consisted of me waking up, getting to my computer, reading Uni Watch, and observing some of the games. About two hours later, my next door neighbor gave us a bucket of crabs. Needless to say, it was a good Saturday. Although, I wish there was as much college uni action for me to get in on as there were crabs (I ate at least ten of the 26-30 that were caught). Either way, here’s what I found this week:

-I have a question: with the three helmets that Rutgers has lying around, do you think that they’d put the wrong helmet in someone’s locker room on gameday? Not saying that I saw that on Thursday, but it seems possible. At least it wouldn’t be as big a blunder as what USF did on special teams. Also, there’s this.

-Minnesota wore their gold tops with maroon pants at home against Western Michigan, although the mascot kinda didn’t get the memo. I thought that they were saving the gold tops for “big” games, like Homecoming, but that isn’t until October. Not that I’m complaining or anything, they looked all kinds of awesome, but I’m just curious as to what the occasion was. Western Michigan looked great as well, but they’re also one of the few remaining Adidas squads that doesn’t wear bumper sticker junk or the Laffy Taffy bodysuit TechFit fabric.

-I mentioned last week that Pitt had helmet decals on the back of their helmets, but couldn’t find a decent picture for the life of me. Luckily, one of the readers from Thursday’s post found this from an earlier game. Thanks!

-I couldn’t find any photos, but the field for the West Virginia/James Madison game had an interesting treatment. They were playing at FedEx field. The Redskins logo was still at midfield, but the endzones had each school’s helmet and name.

–Oklahoma State wore this yesterday. I guess they couldn’t wait one more week to get into the Autumn mood? I won’t say that they went full-pumpkin suit, due to the lack of orange lids, BUT I am tempted to.

-Has anyone else seen Arizona State in this combination before? (also note the captain’s ‘C’) This is the first time that I remember seeing white/white/maroon. Not a bad look. Also, Mizzou looks pretty sweet as well.

-Utah State wore gray tops with navy pants against red-topped Wisconsin. Now that’s a good-looking game.

-Syracuse went back to their white socks, but some players kept the undershirts from last week. The Ernie Davis patch (actually, I think it’s rubberized, or something) looks to be a full-time thing for this season.

-Speaking of undershirts, Army looks to have half-stripes on their compression shirts (which Syracuse also has. Look at #37’s right sleeve). I thought I saw that last week, and this Saturday’s game seems to confirm that (although it’s kinda hard to see).

-BYU and Utah did the color-vs.-color thing in the Holy War again, as they did last year (although Utah’s uniforms are anything but holy).

Aaaannnnnnnnndddddd… that’s really all that I found this week. Pretty slow Saturday. Ummm… yeah. Guess I’ll take care of the rest of those crabs.

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Thanks, TJ! Nice roundup as usual, for what is usually not one of the greatest weeks in NCAAFB. It just gets better from here!

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Catherine Ryan’s 5 & 1

The five and one has been a staple of Uni Watch for three years, usually ably administered by Jim Vilk. But he got old and tired, so we needed someone young and fresh. And we’ve found that someone in this year’s new 5 & 1 decider…Catherine Ryan.

Catherine did a fantastic job last week in her first solo 5 & 1. Let’s see how she did for the third week of the NCAAFB season:

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I took your comments to heart last week, Uni Watch faithful! I have gone back to the countdown format to create some suspense. Let’s get this show on the road!

5. Georgia Tech/Virginia: It took a little bit for me to accept the honeycomb look but I think the gold lids make it look a lot better. Also, big fan of UVA’s all navy set.

4. Washington State vs. UNLV: I’m not sure why this game appealed to me but I love UNLV’s gray lids/bottoms. Washington State looks good, too!

3. Tennessee/Florida: This game was a beauty to watch. Love the Vols in the home tops and the Gators look fresh and clean.

2. Louisville/North Carolina: I went with a lot of red this week but I love Louisville in the all-red. Few teams could make it look this good. I also love the Heels in the navy pants!

1. Georgia/Florida Atlantic: Sorry to slam everyone with red again but Georgia looked great. I almost don’t even care what FAU wore.

And the…

& 1. Oregon/Tennessee Tech: Sorry, Phil. Gross.

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Thanks Catherine! I might disagree with you on a couple of your top 5, but I (sadly) agree 100% with your & 1. Oregon wore their worst look so far, and each week, their opponents have looked heinous. Definitely deserving of the bad spot this week (but it better never happen again). Well readers, how do you think she did?

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2012 Duck Tracker…

The third game of the 2012 Ducks season featured green over green over gray for their annihilation of lowly Tennessee Tech. Definitely not their best look for the season.

Our 2012 Duck Tracker is Tim E. O’Brien, and here he is to tell you about it:

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Lots of wings on helmets, huh… It’s rare that an average look for Oregon looks so good, but that’s what happens when you play a team sporting a visual abortion. I like Oregon’s helmets and the jerseys are ok (the fighting Ducks green is much better) but the gray pants make little to no sense with the other two elements. Worst look of the season, thus far, but still not terrible.

For game pics and more (including news possible future combinations) make sure to visit the full Duck Tracker (and while you’re at it, stop by the NUni Tracker and the Hoosier Tracker).

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Thanks Tim.

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Uni Tweaks Concepts

We have another new set of tweaks, er…concepts today. After discussion with a number of readers, it’s probably more apropos to call most of the reader submissions “concepts” rather than tweaks. So that’s that.

So if you’ve concept for any sport, or just a tweak or wholesale revision, send them my way.

Please do try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per image — if you have three uniform concepts in one image, then obviously, you can go a little over, but no novels, OK? OK!. You guys have usually been good with keeping the descriptions pretty short, and I thank you for that.

Like the colorizations, I’m going to run these as inline pics — click on each one to enlarge.

And so, lets begin:

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First up is Jim Vilk, who liked the Rays “throwback to 1979” so much he decided to concept a throwback for the Nats…

If the Rays can do it, why not the Nats? Inspired by Tampa Bay’s “1979 throwbacks,” and with the design help of Tim E. O’Brien, here are the ’79 Washington Nationals.

I took parts from the ’79 Twins, Rangers and Expos. My favorite part was blending the Twins and Nats’ interlocking logos

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And our final set today is from Michael Martin, who has some concepts for the Broncs:

Phil,

Hey, I don’t know if you’re still accepting Uni Tweaks Concepts for teams without politically incorrect nicknames, but if you are, I’ve got some ideas for my beloved Denver Broncos.

This offseason’s move away from navy blue and back to orange as the team’s primary jersey color was a good start. I’d like to see the team return to royal blue as the trim color and ditch the ‘suspender’ look of the current design. So I’ve come up with a couple of ideas.

First, here’s a uniform look reminiscent of their first orange unis from the Sixties (Orange Home & White Away):

Then there’s a more contemporary look which includes a royal blue alternate jersey (Orange Home, White Away, and Blue Alternate):

Of course, if the team really wants to make their new quarterback feel at home, they could always switch to something like this (Blue Home, Orange Home, and White Away):

(All uniforms created using Russell Athletic’s Uniform Builder web site.)

Michael Martin
Salt Lake City, Utah

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And that’s it for today. Back with more next time.

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“Benchies” first appeared at U-W in 2008, and has been a Saturday & Sunday feature here for the past two years.

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Wow, it was like the defender wasn’t even THERE…

Click to enlarge

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#NoUniAds Campaign…Day 58

This was be a regular feature on Uni Watch while Paul was on his summer sabbatical, but I haven’t addressed this issue in quite some time. We’ll start with the old “request” from Paul:

It’s important that we keep making our voices heard: Call the NBA’s publicly listed phone number (212-407-8000), ask for Adam Silver’s and/or David Stern’s office), e-mail deputy commissioner Adam Silver at his his publicly listed address (asilver@nba.com), and tweet to @NBA with the hashtag #NoUniAds. Do it now.

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I’ve received a few things from readers over the past month-ish, so let me clean out the old inbox with a few of them:

First up is Justin Simmons, who sent me this over the summer, and writes:

Hey Phil,

Thanks for the great work while Paul is on vacation. I want to tip you off on something interesting that I haven’t seen anyone on the Uni talk about. I am part of the NBA Fan Forum, which does surveys about the NBA and all NBA product.

They recently did a survey about changing the WNBA logo and colors, which was interesting.

But more importantly was the survey about NBA sponsorship patches. The first survey I filled out was basically just asking how I felt about sponsorships on NBA uniforms. Of course I answered that I did not want to see them on the jersey, etc. I filled out everything hoping that someone at NBA HQ would get the hint.

Three days later I get another survey about the sponsorship patch. I answered the first about how I did not want to see a patch. The following three questions where in the fashion (no pun intended) of, The sponsorship patch is on the left side, how big can the patch be? Like they got rid of the options of not having a patch. They made me choose from options that included having a sponsorship on the jersey.

Another interesting note is that all the pictures of the jersey with a sponsorship got rid of the NBA logo and replaced that side with the Adidas logo.

That is the link I got through my email for the first patch survey. If it works I can send you others.

Justin D. Simmons

And I received two just this week, so readers are obviously still keeping the faith:

Kyle Allebach writes:

If you’re going to still do the whole “posting emails about anti uni-ads on Saturdays and Sundays” thing, I just send another email (it’s been three months or so…but whatever).

Dear NBA League Office,

Don’t be like soccer. Don’t put ads on your uniforms *unless* we get to watch a basketball game without commercials, and/or ticket prices will drop to below $100 for front row chairs next to the court.

Don’t even try to kid anyone; the NBA makes enough money. Y’all just want more money. Get real, and stop fooling around.

Sincerely,
Kyle Allebach
(a 76ers fan)

-Kyle Allebach

And finally, I received a letter from Ralph Nader(!) and Ken Reed, who identify themselves as members of the “League of Fans“:

Mr. David Stern, Commissioner
National Basketball Association
645 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Dear Mr. Stern:

Is there anything in the National Basketball Association (NBA) that’s not for sale?

The news that the NBA is “excited about the opportunity” to put corporate ads on NBA uniforms, as early as the 2013-14 season, is crass commercialization at its worst, and a blatant back of the hand to the sensibilities of American basketball fans.

It’s bad enough that you’ve sold off the names of the taxpayer-financed arenas that NBA teams play in to corporate marketers, but now you’re seriously considering dumping all the history and tradition associated with iconic uniforms like the Boston Celtics’ and Los Angeles Lakers’ in the quest for more corporate ad revenue. That’s truly over-reaching.

Mr. Stern, do you really want part of your legacy to be “the first commissioner of one of the four major team sports leagues in the country to start the NASCARization of player uniforms?”

Fans already have to put up with non-stop advertising the second they enter an NBA arena. It’s sensory overload. No line of sight is free from commercial messaging. Every timeout is viewed by team franchises as simply a chance to bombard fans with more corporate ads. And now you might put a Burger King or Bank of America logo next to the “Lakers” script on team uniforms?

Speaking of fans, do you ever consider asking fans what they think of ideas like these? You give lip service to being “fan-friendly” and then you proceed to make decisions that are clearly anti-fan, all in the name of a greedy grab for more dollars. This move would take a lot more fun out of the game for fans and lead to significant fan resentment and protests.

Adam Silver, the NBA’s deputy commissioner, told the New York Times a few months ago, “If we add sponsor logos to jerseys, we recognize that some of our fans will think we’ve lost our minds.”

Well, yes Mr. Silver, a lot of fans will think you’ve lost your minds, along with your scruples. Please do not think the fans will roll over on this move.

Pro basketball is more than a business; it’s become a cultural phenomenon in this country. It’s not your typical widgets business. Fans and players have a deep passion for the game.

However, since you seem to be looking at basketball solely as a business, let’s talk business Mr. Stern.

We know you value the equity associated with the NBA brand. So, have you seriously considered the potential negative ramifications for your brand if you slap the logo of companys like McDonald’s on team uniforms? Do you want basketball, an excellent cardiovascular exercise, linked with companies that are driving the obesity epidemic in America?

Or what about the taint to your brand — and the famous NBA logo which sports the silhouette of NBA great Jerry West — when the advertiser on your league’s uniforms gets publicity for ethical and legal scandals, or other public controversies? Consider what having AIG, Goldman Sachs, or Merrill Lynch on NBA uniforms might have done to your brand equity”¦.

I’m sure you and your colleagues will do your due diligence on any potential corporate partner wanting to slap their name and logo on your jerseys. But in effect, you’ll be playing Russian Roulette with your brand. Take a look at all the companies whose names once adorned our country’s stadiums and arenas and then fell from grace. I’m sure Major League Baseball and the Houston Astros ownership group thought they did their due diligence on Enron before giving their blessing to the name Enron Field.

What about the great players from the past who have worn these uniforms? Do you think Bill Russell will feel the same sense of pride in wearing the Boston Celtics uniform during all his championship seasons if the Aetna logo is soon to be sewn on the famous Celtics uniforms?

If you, and the league’s owners, decide to severely damage the tradition of NBA basketball by putting ads on player uniforms, let us suggest another revenue stream for you: sell add space on your own suits! Can you imagine how much revenue the league could garner for a nice corporate ad on David Stern’s suit? You’re one of the most visible and recognizable men in sports, Mr. Stern. Think about what an Exxon Mobil ad on your lapel might be worth. Or, perhaps, an ad on your derriere for Scott Tissue Paper. Everything’s for sale, right?

Reportedly, the decision regarding whether or not to add corporate ads to NBA uniforms will be made within the month. At its essence, this is a choice between pure unadulterated greed and protecting the remaining integrity of the game.

Having arenas plastered on the inside and out with corporate ads and logos is one thing but putting those same ads on uniforms is a completely different step. It’s a step that you should refuse to take.

But if you do, here’s a suggestion: change your league’s initials from NBA to EFS (Everything’s for Sale). It would be a more candid representation because greed will have completely trumped better judgment as your league’s focus.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader, Founder, League of Fans
Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans

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Thanks for keeping the faith readers! We can stop the NBA if we can keep up the pressure. Don’t let the crusade die off — KEEP UP THE PRESSURE!

#NoUniAds!

Thanks to Tim E. O’Brien and Chris Giorgio for the image in the upper right of this section!

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And that will do it — yeah, I know the D-Bags threwupback to the purple softball tops, and the NHL season is over (or something) but no one cares about that — because it’s FOOTBALL season now. Yes…those are grown men in bumblebee suits.

Enjoy the big boy games today, and I’ll catch you guys next weekend!

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“No insult intended. I’m just old.”
–Jim Vilk