Some Thoughts About Big Uni

I’ve got a bit of a counter-point to this morning’s article: what if consumers actually *want* Big Uni tactics. What if, rather than companies dictating to fans that consumerism is a key part of fandom and fans reacting to that, fans’ desire for products has driven the rise in consumerism. What if fan desire for new and exciting products has led to the rise in new and different uniform designs?

Anecdotally, I bought a LOT of jerseys when I was a kid. I didn’t do it because I thought it made me a better fan – I did it because I liked the material, and I thought I looked good in it. It wasn’t some corporate advertising that made me buy them: it came from me. I understand the feeling that corporate advertising has taken over the sports world, because it has. I can’t stand the level of advertising and “sponsorship” around all things sports today. But to say that Big Uni is somehow guiding innocent fan sheep into buying products is a little too smug for my taste. Fans know what they do and don’t want to purchase, by and large. I’d argue that Big Uni is reacting to a market rather than creating it. It’s on the fans.

It’s been so long since I saw a single bar facemask in action, even on placekickers, I wonder — are they even allowed now?

For that matter, it seems like hardly anyone wears facemask with a central vertical bar, not even linemen.

3 and 4 seem off point to me. Are they part of the problem, assuming that the effects of Big Uni are a problem? Yes. But if Big Uni has any meaning as a term similar to Big Pharma or Big Beer or whatever, then 3 and 4 are part of the problem but not part of Big Uni. Let’s take Big Pharma as a model. The oligarchic large drug companies are at the core of Big Pharma, obviously. And the various government and private health regulatory bodies that have been captured by the industry such that they tend to do the bidding of the drug companies, they can meaningfully be called part of Big Pharma. But the TV stations that take money to air Big Pharma ads for drugs, ads that drive individual demand for medications? That seems a stretch, since the TV stations are acting as a medium; they’re indifferent to Big Pharma’s interests, and simply air the ads because they’re in the business of airing ads from pretty much anybody who pays them money to air ads. What about the individual patients whose ad-driven interest in drugs fuels Big Pharma? I see two ways to look at them. First, they’re the victims. Big Pharma’s target. Calling them part of Big Pharma seems rather a lot like saying that the bodega owner who gives into mob threats and pays protection money is part of organized crime. No, she’s the victim of organized crime. Alternately, there’s semantics: By including patients as a class in “Big Pharma,” we’ve created a category word that includes everything and excludes nothing. That’s not a category, and so the inclusion has rendered “Big Pharma” meaningless as a phrase. It literally means nothing if we include patients as well as pharmaceutical companies, clinics and doctors.

Same with Big Uni. I think that, as a concept, it has more meaning and impact if limited to the actors with the most agency and the most direct control. Retailers are acting in ways that serve Big Uni’s interests, sure. But if Nike didn’t exist and behave like Nike, Dick’s and Modell’s wouldn’t have to go out and invent Nike. Whereas if sporting goods retail collapsed tomorrow, like electronics retailing essentially did circa 2007, Nike et al absolutely would go out and invent a new retail channel. Retailers benefit from Big Uni, but they don’t actually depend on it. Witness the fact that sporting goods stores existed, and were in fact more successful, before Big Uni. Whereas Big Uni cannot exist without retailers. Big Uni depends on the retailers.

Couldn’t sporting goods retailers simply refuse to carry Big Uni’s products? Of course. But retailers, like jersey ad buyers, are responding to market forces from above and from below. Those forces make participating in Big Pharma’s efforts rational almost to the point of being mandatory. Like the bodega owner who slips his bag of twenties to the mob enforcer every month, retailers must carry Nike products as a condition of doing business. The alternative for a retailer is not, Carry Big Uni merch or Do not carry Big Uni merch; the retailer’s choice is, Be a sporting goods retailer or Do not be a sporting goods retailer. The corporate interests that will buy Uni ads are in a similar position. Once Big Uni opens that frontier of advertising, advertisers are faced with the choice of whether to add that medium to their marketing efforts. If their return on investment reaching NBA fans is sufficient, then they pretty much have to advertise in that space. Not because they favor Big Uni or its values or objectives, but because that’s the rational choice for them and their unrelated interests. Just like a TV station’s decision to run a Big Pharma ad doesn’t make TV stations part of Big Pharma. They’re being exploited by Big Pharma, and corporate advertisers are being exploited by Big Uni.

That quibble about definitions aside, I like how the concept of Big Uni potentially reframes our understanding of what sports leagues are and do – what they’re for. I’m not sure any longer that leagues actually exist to facilitate athletic competition among teams. They’re primarily about generating revenue. If the NFL believed it could make more money by manufacturing and selling automobiles, it would start building car factories tomorrow. What keeps it in the business of holding football games is the fact that that’s where the money is, at least for an organization with its current assets and knowledge. And Big Uni plays a large and increasing role in that, probably second only to the sale of broadcast rights. It’s not just that we’re all rooting for pajamas now. Pajamas are the teams now.

Can we not use the term “the red pill”? The first thing that comes into my mind when I hear that is a group of anti-women users on Reddit.

Not a big deal, but the link to the helmet rankings is for the last slide in the group. Anticlimactic, yes, but also forces the user to figure out he has to click left arrow to scroll.

Here’s what I resent the most about Big Uni: that the first impulse it creates in fans is not to say “I like that” or “that looks good” but to ask “where can I buy that”

With uniforms, its nice to talk about design and aesthetics and not have everything be about money.

In my opinion. the retail uniform/ athletic apparel market is where it’s at due to demand, not forced supply. Colleges are having to adopt all of these crazy uniform designs as recruiting tactics because it matters to the players. So I don’t believe it’s true that Nike/UA/Addidas are doing what they are doing just to sell to consumers. Sure that’s a big part of it, but if that were true then why would Nike spend so much money developing “vapor untouchable” or “Elite 51” uniforms when I’m sure 80% of their retail sales are for the game and limited jerseys? Why spend all the money on performance research to develop a better uniform for the athletes that focuses more on performance than aesthetic if your goal is just to sell a watered down version of the jersey to consumers? I would argue the most extreme uniforms are found in one of the few markets where a brand doesn’t have a monopoly (College Football) and the schools can choose who to outfit them and choose their own designs.
The way I see it is at the end of the day, these are games. These are games played that are meant to entertain fans. What entertains people today is alot different than what entertained them 20 years ago, as hard as that is for traditionalists to hear. I love collecting jerseys. I love my game day ritual of choosing my “lucky jersey” and shorts or whatever for that day. I also think that Wilson, Russel, etc., products are total shit compared to Nike, UA, Addidas, etc. I buy Nike gear because it’s higher quality, more comfortable, and lasts longer than other brands. Maybe the teams/leagues took a different route because the quality of certain companies fell off? I guess I just don’t understand your disdain for “Big Uni”. Frankly if “Big Uni” didn’t exist and every team had plain and generic uniforms that never changed, Uni-watch wouldn’t last much longer. I am a musician and I don’t see any difference in what these companies do with athletic apparel than what guitar/amp manufacturers do with big artists: give them gear to play for free so all of their musician fans go out and buy their brand. I just don’t get what’s wrong with that when the purpose of sports first and foremost is to entertain us little people who are out doing the mundane jobs. My absolute favorite days of the year are gearing up to watch my team play.