Uni Watch Exclusive: NBA Uni Ad Program May Be Dead, at Least for Now

As the calendar turned from September to October, we were wondering why the NBA hadn’t announced the results of the final vote on its uniform advertising plan. Then, after comments last week from NBA commish David Stern, it became apparent that the vote hadn’t taken place yet. I was curious about why the vote had been delayed, and now I think I’ve found the answer.

A little birdie tells me that the uni advertising plan is currently dead. DEAD! Why? I wish I could say it’s because of the #NoUniAds movement. That would be ideal, but it’s not the case. The real reason, however, has a delicious undercurrent of poetic justice: According to the little birdie, the uni advertising program is dead — DEAD! — because the owners couldn’t agree on how to how to share the profits.

How perfect is that? A plan based on greed falls apart because the greedy participants are too greedy to figure out how to share the greed-generated wealth amongst their greedy selves. Serves them all right.

(Here’s an odd sidebar to all of this: As you may recall, when David Stern gave his “I don’t like it, but I won’t stand in the way of it” comments last week, Eric Freeman of Yahoo Sports ran an item with a headline claiming that the owners were “divided” and some text referring to “disagreement among the owners.” At the time, I said I thought Freeman was overreaching, because there was nothing in Stern’s comments about dissent among the owners. But now it appears Freeman was onto something, even if he didn’t substantiate his claims.)

Before everyone starts celebrating, there are two big caveats here:

1) My little birdie get this info second-hand from an NBA source who is not an executive-level employee. So this news isn’t quite from the horse’s mouth. More like from a friend of the horse’s stablekeeper. Take that as you will. Personally, if I had to rate the reliability of this information on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d probably rate it as a 6.5, at least until I can get confirmation (which I’m trying to get, believe me).

2) Even if the info is 100% correct, it doesn’t mean the uni advertising plan is permanently kaput. It just means it’s dead for now. If the owners can find a way to equitably distribute their greed in a way that pleases everyone, the plan could be revived.

For now, though, this is very, very good news. #NoUniAds.

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Collector’s Corner

By Brinke Guthrie

With the League Championship Series under way, I thought we’d start off this week by highlighting the final four teams. For the NL, we have this 1970s Cardinals “Slugger Bird” thermal mug and this 1960s Giants bobblehead. (“Like Posey,” right.) Representing the junior circuit, we’re going with this 1960s Yankees pennant and this game-worn 1970s Tigers jacket. Tigers and Yankees looks don’t change much, do they.

But man (and woman) cannot live on LCS alone, so here’s the rest of this week’s eBay haul:

• From reader Jason Hillyer, check out this Reds cup with Okkonen/Dressed to the Nines artwork.

• Here’s a bunch of 1970s NFL stuff — books, posters, helmets, photos — all in one handy auction.

• Ooh, this looks like a great book: The 1969 NFL Record Manual.

• Here’s a 1972 NFL sleeping bag — complete with facsimile autographs!

• Just the shield, no star: The seller says this blue NFL jacket with no team designation was purchased at the Cowboys’ own pro shop. Jerrah sold something that didn’t say Cowboys? Also from the Cowboys: this jacket was sold by Reebok when the Cowboys were a Nike team the first time around. I owned one of these, and let me tell you, Reebok did a great job. Awesome comfort.

• Let’s wrap up with some more NFL jackets, okay? Doesn’t get any more retro than that shiny Starter look. We have the Packers,
Steelers, Bears, and Dolphins.

Seen something on eBay or Etsy that you think would make good Collector’s Corner fodder? Send your submissions here, and you can follow Brinke on Twitter and Facebook.

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PermaRec update: Uni Watch and Permanent Record have intersected in the form of an old varsity jacket that I first mentioned here on the site two years ago. Get the full scoop here. (For those of you who already read this entry yesterday, when I linked to it from Facebook, there’s now a fairly exciting update that’s been appended to the end of the jacket story, so you might want to go back and check it out again.)

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Uni Watch News Ticker: I wrote a little piece about the Gatorade/MLB shenanigans for Business Week. I may also be doing an interview segment on this topic for Bloomberg TV. … Longtime reader Aaron Dana is an illustrator, and he’s come up with two awesome projects: a Tumblr devoted to pitchers’ iconic leg kicks and follow-throughs and a zine about left-handed athletes. Great stuff, and highly recommended. ”¦ I was calling it St. James’ Park all along anyway (from George Chilvers). … Pink element I hadn’t noticed before: kicking tees (from Jerry Kulig). … Winston Justice of the Colts had an awkward fold in his jersey on Sunday (from David Bremer). … Good article about England’s soccer team’s move from Umbro to Nike (from Patrick Runge). … Leftover observation from Saturday’s college football action: When’s the last time Temple wore red pants? (From Andrew Hoenig.) … Northwestern will be wearing black jerseys this weekend (“to the surprise of no one,” adds Tim E. O’Brien). … Faaascinating look at the inside story behind the NHL’s propaganda campaign for the lockout. … Kudos to the All Blacks players, who’ve successfully campaigned to reduce the size of the corporate sponsorship logo on their jersey. … Nike will be outfitting Aussie football teams for at least the next 11 years (from Leo Thornton). ”¦ Also from Leo: New court for the Spurs. ”¦ Here’s more info on that fucking hideous Boise State BFBS costume (from Bryan Council). ”¦ Here’s a beauty: the 1916 Cubs and White Sox wearing jackets made by the same company (big thanks to Todd Radom). ”¦ According to several readers who were listening to last night’s NLCS game on ESPN Radio, broadcaster John Sciambi had this to say during Hunter Pence’s first plate appearance: “According to Uni Watch, Hunter Pence is the only player in MLB to wear just one batting glove.” Not bad. “He asked Chris Singleton (the color analyst) if he knew what Uni Watch was,” reports Brian Gaul. “Singleton had no idea and thought it was something about watches. Lame.” ”¦ Some great uniform shots in this slideshow of the 50 greatest Bears (from Ron Roza). ”¦ Chris Miller spotted a cab in Seattle with a swoosh on the back. “Not the greatest picture, as I was in stop and go traffic, but I can confirm it is indeed the mark of the beast,” he says. ”¦ Gratuitous pink is bad enough, but it looks particularly bad when paired with San Diego’s powder blues. Woof! ”¦ In a related item, Austin Hardison notes that Peyton Manning wore pink wristbands in the first half, when the Broncos played like shite. But then he came out for the second half in white wristbands — and the Broncos promptly stormed back to a big comeback win. … Angel Pagan had a big ol’ sticker on his underbrim last night (thanks, Brinke). ”¦ Here’s a video of the Suns’ new court being assembled. Key sentence: “The goal behind the change was to create an ambigram so that fans can read the team name no matter which side of the arena they sit.” Hmmm, an ambigram? Never heard that word before, but sure enough. Very cool! (Big thanks to Kyle Hanks.)