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Insert Joke About the Knicks’ Offense Here

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I don’t usually pay much attention to TV commercials, but the other night I was watching the Mets and caught a quick glimpse of what appeared to be a Viagra ad featuring a couple wearing very NBA-esque jerseys. A quick search on “viagra basketball commercial” turned up the video shown above. It was apparently released back in January, so maybe you’ve all seen it plenty of times, but it was new to me.

The ad shows a guy wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and a woman wearing a blue tank top jersey. Both feature the same logo. The implication is that they’ve just returned from watching a game. A few notes:

•  The guy’s T-shirt is white. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from selling T-shirts (and from talking to other people in the T-shirt biz), it’s that nobody buys or wears white T-shirts. Nobody.

•  The T-shirt and jersey both have a blue/orange color scheme — very Knicks-like. The woman’s jersey also has a bit of black trim, somewhat evocative of the Knicks’ BFBS phase.

•  In fact, the logo shown on the shirt and jersey — a very NBA-ish stylized basketball — is oriented almost exactly like the basketball in the Knicks’ logo:

True, it’s not exactly the same as the Knicks’ basketball, but it’s very close. If you look at all 30 NBA team logos, you’ll find that no other logo has a basketball that’s as close a match as the Knicks’ basketball.

•  The woman’s jersey has No. 16 on the back (a number worn by only three active NBA players: Pau Gasol of the Spurs, James Johnson of the Heat, and Paul Zipser of the Bulls). NNOB, naturally.

•  The jersey doesn’t have a maker’s mark, but it does have three white stripes up the side — very Adidas-like! They’d better run this commercial a lot over the next month or so, before Nike takes over the NBA’s uniform contract.

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The discount code will be provided to new enrollees when they place their card orders. Existing enrollees can obtain the discount code by contacting me. Once I confirm that you are indeed a card-carrying Uni Watch member, I’ll email the discount code to you.

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The Ticker
By Alex Hider

Baseball News: Brewers OF Keon Broxton, who wears No. 23, was  wearing a teammate’s wristband during yesterday’s game (from  Stephen Hayes). …  The Cardinals promoted an upcoming 1967 World Series ring replica giveaway with a tweet that many are calling sexist (from Tommy Turner). … The Mariners are having a rough season ”” are their new BP caps bad luck? (From Dustin Jensen.) …  Padres OF Travis Jankowski went undercover to sell his own jersey to unsuspecting fans (from Mike). …  Mets 1B Lucas Duda is currently on rehab assignment with Class-A St. Lucie and was wearing different pants than the rest of the team during yesterday’s game. Duda’s pants had a blue stripe, but St. Lucie’s pants have a thick orange stripe  (from A.J. Frey). …  A  bar in Covington, Ky., across the river from Cincinnati,  celebrates the history of the Covington Blue Sox,  the short-lived Federal League team (from  Jorge Cruz). …  Blue-on-blue matchup in the Texas high school state playoffs (from  Mike Barnes). … Chase d’Arnaud, now with the Red Sox, once again has a lowercase letter in his NOB. … Yesterday we reported on Venezuelan-born MLB players wearing the #SosVenezuela hashtag on their eye black. Last night Pirates P Felipe Rivero wore something similar on the back of his cap (from Mark Kunz). … A’s INF Jed Lowrie’s cap didn’t have the New Era logo last night (from Rudy Gutierrez). … In a related item, Nats skipper Dusty Baker has apparently been wearing an old cap, without the maker’s mark, on the road, as seen here and here (from Neil Dorfman).

Pro and College News: The  Colts will retire Peyton Manning’s No. 18 on Oct. 8 (from  Mike). …  The Steelers’ draftees have received their uni number assignments (from Mike Slavonic). … Broncos rookie DeMarcus Walker was spotted at a Denver-area school wearing a jersey with the Nikelace. Probably just old stock, as the team is selling jerseys with the new tailoring template (from  Broc). … The Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CFL exchanged jerseys with Canada’s national rugby team on Tuesday (from  Moe Khan). …  Matt Fedorka found a bunch of  old Patriots media guides at his work. Check out the 2000 guide ”” it uses the wrong number font! … Look  at former Charger RB Joe Washington’s double-decker FNOB ”” and his silver shoes (from  Pro Football Journal). … Ravens coach John Harbaugh spent $1,500 to buy caps for soldiers at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. … The Texas Longhorns have become the first Power Five program to monitor head injuries with an innovative helmet system (from Phil).

Hockey News: The Rangers and Sabres will play in the  2018 Winter Classic  at Citi Field. No word yet on jersey designs. Although the NHL is doing without alternate jerseys for 2017-18, as part of the Reebok-to-Adidas changeover, you’d think they’d still have special designs for the Winter Classic. … The Sioux City Musketeers sure have a lot of ads on their ice (from Danny Manson).

NBA News:  The Clippers’ D G-League affiliate will be named  Agua Caliente Clippers of Ontario. Agua Caliente (“Hot Water”) refers to a advertisement deal with a local casino/resort, and Ontario refers to the team’s home of Ontario, California (from  Mike). … Here’s a good story from a 1993 edition of SI, featuring interviews with 13 players with the last name Williams, then the most common surname in the league. Per  Mike Chamernik, “Most interesting part is that at the end, Brian Williams says his name is too bland and that he’d like to change it. A few years later, he actually did change it, to Bison Dele.”

Soccer News: Here’s a good piece on the  origins of English football badges (from  Ryan). …  Eintracht Frankfurt of the Bundesliga will wear these jerseys for an upcoming game. According to Bernd Wilms, the kit’s advertiser is a brewer, so the club has different advertisers for its youth teams and doesn’t usually include an ad on children’s replica jerseys. So, inexplicably, here’s what the children’s version of the one-off jerseys looks like. …  Here’s the kit  Championship side Ipswich Town will be wearing next season (from  Ed Zelaski). … Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC of the Scottish Premier League will have new kits next season (from  Ed Zelaski). … New kits for  Olympique Marseille (from  Josh Hinton). … Stoke City’s new kits have also leaked, as has Nottingham Forest’s new home kit (also from  Josh Hinton). … Lionel Messi has quite the jersey collection, thanks to post-game jersey swaps (from  Phil). … Sporting Kansas City will wear Wizards-era  rainbow warmup jerseys before their May 17 match for “Throwback Night” (from  Phil). … These are the kits for the Birmingham Hammers of the National Premier Soccer League this season (from  James H. Jimenez).

Grab Bag: Golfer  Rory McIlroy will begin using TaylorMade clubs and balls (from Brinke). …  Japan’s badminton team has new uniforms (from Jeremy Brahm). …  Apparently, every municipality in Japan has its own  unique manhole cover design (from  James Gilbert).

 
  
 
Comments (82)

    I butly them… to wear as undershirts beneath my dress shirts. Wearing a white T-shirt in public would make me feel partially undressed.

    This. However, I often wear a plain colored t-shirt, such as black, blue, or gray.

    If I’m doing anything in the sun during the summer, like watching a ballgame from an uncovered seat, the only color t-shirt I’m wearing is white.

    I do, too.

    I have way too many t-shirts as it is, but I have way WAY too many black/navy blue ones. So if I come across a good white one, I usually buy it.

    It doesn’t happen very often. I think I have 3 white shirts in my t-shirt drawer.

    I’m assuming we’re not talking about white undershirts, as I’m sure lots of people still buy those.

    Yeah, I don’t think anyone here is baffled as to why it’s the least popular shirt color.

    I agree. And yet baseball and softball players at every level often wear white socks while playing/running/sliding in dirt. Always made me wonder…

    Last white T-shirt I bought was the UW Jackie Robinson shirt, and I also got the gray one. I actually prefer the gray one.

    Out here in L.A. a lot of people wear white shirts all the time, and I mean plain white shirts. Yes they do turn off-white fast, so you demote them to undershirts and buy new ones. For many years I wore white t-shirts exclusively as a matter of fact.

    I had that issue of SI with the Williams NBA article and it was interesting to me at the time. Reading it now, I see Dele name dropped the brother that supposedly killed him.

    I’m sure the Red Sox have had many other players with a lowercase NOB. A quick Google search found this example: link

    The lower-case “d” on d’Arnaud’s jersey looks a lot like an upside-down “P”, as does the one worn by the Mets’ Jacob deGrom.

    Personally, I don’t like the practice. If the name is all caps, then all the letters should be caps. Names are typically typeset with a capital letter followed by a string of lowercase letters, not in all caps. All caps is simply the style used for the jersey lettering. It doesn’t make sense to have one letter lowercase if all the others are uppercase, though. If they need to be made subordinate, they should be small caps.

    I disagree. Nothing to me looked more stupid than the Cardinals using all caps resulting in “MC GWIRE” and “LA RUSSA”.

    I’m warming to it. As much as I never render my last name in all-caps outside of a sports jersey (and I only put my name on a jersey if I have made a team), I never had a problem with McGWIRE, LoDUCA or DeJESUS, and actually think it looks better. I think it’s the first letter being lowercase that is jarring to me.

    Thanks, Paul. I stand corrected. And looking at the archives, I can see that you wrote about this a couple of years ago.

    link

    Rory taking on TaylorMade is an interesting development. It’s owned by Adidas (Nike’s chief rival). I wonder will they make him wear or utilize a golf bag that has anything Adidas related to it? I’m assuming Nike will have to clear anything if they try, but typically TaylorMade keeps Adidas off everything but the hats they sell, so I guess it could work OK.

    I don’t think it would have been an issue anyway, but adidas just sold TaylorMade.

    link

    Not sure what Viagra is, but I’m gathering that it is a sports supplement that improves passing accuracy. That’s because an old commercial showed a gray-haired older man tossing football after football through a swinging tire with deadly precision. Then an admiring, young-looking woman (his daughter?) beckoned him to come inside for some immediate bedrest.

    Anyway, I purchased some for my defensive lineman son in the hope of turning him into a star quarterback (and future meal ticket and retirement plan, mind you). Gave him five tablets and his passing ability literally disappeared. (Some unknown entity kept batting down his throws as soon as they left his hand!)

    But his defensive position coach claims he now has the damndest 5-point stance that he’s ever seen. Go figure.

    “…young-looking woman (his daughter?)”

    I don’t laugh out loud at many things (not even my own “jokes”), but that line got me. Thanks!

    “…young-looking woman (his daughter?)”

    That exact line too made me laugh out loud. Well done, Thomas S.

    Why did she choose #16, I asked.

    She said, “C’mon. You gotta have a little bit of fun, man! But only if you explain what 16 means to me. Then I’ll talk.”

    Pharmaceutical commercials are the best around. Where else can you find some old guys jamming in the garage? Or a man and his wife catching a glance at each other while sanding an antique bench? Or a guy operating a food truck called Jalapeñ-O! because food trucks were really big at the time?
    So sublime.

    I swear the “on hold” music at my work is the same as on the Cialis commercial! At least written by the same person.

    “Ravens coach John Harbaugh spent $1,500 to buy caps for soldiers at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.”

    Yeah… I don’t think he spent any money at all.

    Viagra had another ad where the actress wore a white football jersey with the number 16 on it. I am guessing that there is some connection with viagra and the number 16.

    link

    The Mariners are having a rough season – are their new BP caps bad luck? (From Dustin Jensen.)

    Augh! Hating on the trident is something I despise. The team is not changing its name to the Wariners or the Whalers (although a Washington connection could have a case made for it). Superstition drives me nuts.

    I did a search on NFL shop for “vapor untouchable” and if the current retail jerseys are any indication, the following teams will not have the new template: Bills, Jets (though both the Bills and Jets had the new jersey template for the draft), Cardinals, Bears, Colts, Browns, Panthers, Bucs, Packers. The Cowboys aren’t on the site either but are selling the new template on their own website so maybe some of these other teams will switch too. The jerseys look so much better than both the old Reebok template and the older Nike template. I can deal with the triangle collar thing alot more than that “NFL Equipment” and toilet bowl collar crap. The Saints, Rams, and Bengals jerseys especially look notably better as they no longer have the toilet seat 2 color collar.

    link

    How appropriate, a name-branded team in a name-branded league. But will news outlets ignore the branding and just call them the Ontario Clippers?

    Correction: “Sioux City MUSKETEERS sure have a lot of ads on their ice”.

    I’m still waiting for the day that Red Bull buys a team in one of the four major sports and attempts to call the team Red Bull (insert city).

    This always boggled my mind until I joined the Marine Corps and saw the vast fleet of vehicles owned not just by the Corps but by the entire Department of Defense, the vast majority of which are white.

    And it’s the most popular van color for serial killers.
    And the most popular lighter color for undercover cops.

    While I think at least a majority of us would agree that the “he likes baseball, she likes jewelry” tagline is complete and utter sexist BS, the tweet from the lady in response raises an interesting question in my mind. She said something to the effect of, “Women like sports and spend money on sports too. Market to us and you’ll get our money.” How do you market sports specifically to women without being a jerk, and is there really a need to? I mean, why not just market sports to sports fans without regard to gender?

    I think for the most part, baseball, at least, is marketed to fans in general rather than any specific gender. Most female fans I know are insulted by specific marketing to women, which at best comes across as somewhat awkward.

    My biggest issue is with a cheap giveaway ring being called jewelry.

    Agree. I think baseball fans, regardless of gender, probably come out to the ballpark for the same core group of reasons, mostly.

    I can’t speak for the tweeter, but I don’t think she meant market specifically towards women. I read it is “Market to women the same way you market to all fans.”

    I thought what you said had merit, so I went and looked at what she actually wrote. “So we get this clear: WOMEN LIKE SPORTS AND OUR MONEY IS JUST AS GOOD SO MARKET TO US AND YOU’LL MAKE $$$.” Personally, I’d just market to baseball fans, but it definitely seems like “us” means “women,” so I was wondering if anyone, perhaps especially any ladies around here, had any thoughts on how they could market specifically to ladies without being jerks.

    No person I know cares about baseball advertising that fails to be gender neutral. There are some real issues in our society that certainly tug at strings of emotion. This is not one of them.

    Kyle, I know this may be a shocker, but (a) the world extends beyond people you know, and (b) perhaps you, being male, are not in the best position to assess how women feel about certain types of advertising.

    Just something to consider.

    I agree that it is a garbage advertisement. 1967 replica rings sell themselves. If I owned a business I wouldn’t use advertising based on gender stereotypes. That said, I find reactions to non gender neutral advertising absurd.

    Letting non gender neutral advertising bother you I think is a waste of emotion. It is a shame our media and social media spends more time caring about minor PC issues instead of focusing on issues like:
    inequality in the justice system, drone strikes on innocent children and civilian in foreign countries, for profit prisons etc.

    Most of my friends and acquaintances are hardcore liberals, just in the broad spectrum of stuff to give a crap about, advertising to gender stereotypes is incredibly low on the “what matters” measuring stick.

    Letting non gender neutral advertising bother you I think is a waste of emotion. It is a shame our media and social media spends more time caring about minor PC issues instead of focusing on issues like: inequality in the justice system, drone strikes on innocent children and civilian in foreign countries, for profit prisons etc.

    The world is not a binary system where you can only care about This Stuff or That Stuff. Incredibly enough, it’s possible to care about Lots of Stuff at the same time.

    Or to put it another way, if you’re so concerned about drone strikes and the like, why are you wasting your time on Uni Watch? Shouldn’t you be out saving the innocent children?

    The fact that some things are more important than others doesn’t mean that the less important things don’t matter. It just means that some things are more important than others. Or to put it another way, you can care about curing cancer and still care about curing the common cold as well. In the grand scheme of things, does gender-problematic marketing fall closer to the common cold than to cancer? Yeah, probably. But it reflects a much larger problem about how men view women, how women have to deal with all sort of bullshit every day that men often don’t even have to think about, and so on. And *that* is much bigger than the common cold. It’s not a “hardcore liberal” issue; it’s just a human issue.

    Proofreading:

    “Brewers OF Keon Broxton, who wears NO. 23”

    – “NO.” is inconsistent with the “No.” used earlier. Yes, I’m picking nits on this one.

    At no point in my life, did I ever think I’d find myself uttering the phrase, “Those manhole covers are beautiful!” But, here we are. Those are fantastic!

    The manhole covers in Japan are amazing! Was a constant activity of mine while in Japan. Not all are painted – you have to hunt for the painted versions. There are also covers for the other holes in the link.

    well, if you were looking at an alphabetic roster, you probably didn’t read all the way down to the entry for Zipser.

    Re uniforms in commercials, I tweeted during the NCAA tournament, and can’t recall if it made the ticker, about the Buffalo Wild Wings commercial (entitled “No. 7”) which has the customers watching an NCAA game remark to the server that they should take out no. 7, and then that player shows up at the customers’ table. It took me a few viewings to realize that the word mark for ‘Louisville’ seems to be correct, and of course there could be not be a ‘no. 7’.

    Nice to see several readers add their comments about the manhole covers.

    On a Uni-verse level, another issue pops up in the Rory McIlroy link. Is he really wearing a wedding ring on his index finger, or does the editorial staff at The Golf Channel not know the correct colloquial name of the finger a ring is worn on?

    Very curious about the NHL Winter Classic and Stadium Series uniforms next year. Sure, Adidas says no third jerseys, but these events have become synonymous with throwback/fauxback and special uniform designs. Fans really look forward to seeing what teams will come up with. Not having them would be a bit of a disappointment. Not to mention all of the merchandise the teams can sell as a result of introducing these unis.

    Then again, this is the NHL. They deal in counter-productivity and routinely leaving money on the table.

    There may be no 3rds next year, but there will be special uniforms for the outdoor game. I would almost guarantee it. Could not have an outdoor game with just the regular uniforms. A precedent has been set.

    In the Soccer News portion of the Ticker, you have “Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC, of the Scottish Premier League.” Technically, the top-flight has been officially known as the Scottish Premiership since 2013, when the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League merged to form the over-arching Scottish Professional Football League.

    Re: Eintracht Frankfurt. Kids sponsor is an alcohol free malt drink made by Krombacher.

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