Today in the Ticker: Lots of soccer news, the story behind an XFL team name, and more.
Uni Watch News Ticker for Feb. 22, 2023
Posted in:
Baseball
MLB
- Padres SS Ha Seong Kim has added “H.S.” to his NOB. Previously, his NOB was just “Kim.” (From Bruce Jaynes)
- The Twins’ new “M” logo looks a bit like survey company Medallia’s current logo, which was unveiled in 2019. Medallia even has a North Star reference in its marketingspeak! (From Geoff Mork)
- Here’s a great look at the evolution of the Ebbets Field scoreboard.
- Back in 2019, Paul wrote about how Mets pitching coach Phil Regan, then 82, was MLB’s oldest uniformed team employee. Now Regan, who’s 85 and no longer with the Mets, is suing the the team for age discrimination.
Minors
- Here’s a cool story — including some great old photos — about the now-defunct Johnson Field, the home of Binghamton, N.Y.’s minor league teams during much of the first half of the 20th century. [As an aside, during college in the 1980s, I lived a few blocks from that site. — Paul] (From Kary Klismet)
More
- Crazy uniform coming this May for the Nippon-Ham Fighters.
Football
NFL
- The NFL made a mock draft graphic with Ohio State QB CJ Stroud, Photoshopping an Ohio State/Colts Frankenhelmet onto his head. (From Shawn Cyr)
College
- Texas won’t have alternate uniforms, says its athletic director.
More
- WWE fans will know how the XFL’s San Antonio Brahmas got their name. (From Kary Klismet)
- Also from Kary: The Roanoke Rampage, a team made up of first responders from Salem, Va., unveiled rings for winning the national championship in their division of the National Public Safety Football League.
Hockey
NHL
- The Penguins had a Mardi Gras-themed charity night last night, and are auctioning off a Robo-Penguin sweater adorned with fleur-de-lis. (From Noah Kastroll)
Minors/Juniors
- The PHF’s Boston Pride wore “Hockey Fights Cancer” sweaters over the weekend. (From our own Jamie Rathjen)
Basketball
NBA
College
- Virginia women’s wore pink at home on Sunday. (From our own Jamie Rathjen)
- Virginia women’s coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton wore a No. 58 jersey on the bench in memory of her mother. The jersey had her mother’s NOB. (Also from Jamie)
- Sunday’s Ticker mentioned that Michigan and Michigan State men’s both wore pregame warm-ups last Saturday to honor the victims of the mass shooting on MSU’s campus last week. Michigan also lit up the interior of Crisler Arena with green and white lights, the colors of MSU. (From Kary Klismet)
More
- Sporting goods manufacturer Wilson has developed a 3D-printed basketball that bounces like it’s inflated but is full of holes. (From Kary Klismet)
Soccer
International
- England and Japan’s women’s teams wore purple wristbands to support Canada’s gender equity protests over the weekend. (From multiple readers)
- The UK government is apparently going to agree with Premier League clubs for them to voluntarily stop wearing gambling ads on the front of the shirt (not on the sleeve) instead of making it illegal. Says our own Jamie Rathjen, “I’m interested in how this would affect West Ham United’s women’s team, for example, as the only one of the affected clubs with a WSL team. And of course, it wouldn’t affect the men’s Championship, where gambling ads are way more common.” (This, and the rest of the items in this section, from Jamie)
- Australia’s women’s team wore rainbow numbers on Sunday.
- Australia DF Clare Polkinghorne also got a framed No. 150 shirt for reaching 150 caps.
- English club Bolton Wanderers’ stadium got a new naming rights ad. It sounds like the company’s name is intentionally tongue-in-cheek and supposed to sound like “tough shit.”
- German club Borussia Dortmund’s men’s team wore black shirts at home on Sunday as a tribute to the area’s coal mining and steel industries. Some fans brought a banner saying, “You adorn yourselves in the symbols of the working class. Don’t forget them with your ticket prices!”
Rugby
- New mascot for the Leigh Leopards of Britain’s men’s Super League. (From Kary Klismet)
Auto Racing
- New helmet for driver Pierre Gasly of the Alpine F1 team. (From Kary Klismet)
Grab Bag
- New Premier Lacrosse League Championship Series helmets have been revealed for four teams: Archers, Whipsnakes, Chrome, and Atlas. (From Jared Buccola)
- New mascot for Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College. (From Kary Klismet)
- New e-sports arena for Southeast Oklahoma State University. (Also from Kary)
- New renderings have been released for an arena in Brisbane, Australia, that will be used for the 2032 Summer Olympics in the city. (One more from Kary)
- Buick’s new logo came about by accident.
Comments (28)
The AHL’s Cleveland Monsters are playing outside in the football stadium and have a logo/uni for the occasion
link
Noticed you’re putting all the “rugby,” news under 1 banner. For those unaware, there are actually two separate sports called rugby. Rugby Union (original) and Rugby League. Rugby Union dates back centuries in England, but League split off in the late 19th century when a bunch of clubs around Manchester wanted to go professional, in defiance of the RFU’s strict amateur requirements.
Today, Rugby League is pretty much only played along the M62 Corridor, which stretches across north-central England from Liverpool to Hull. All of the best, and almost all of the total pro-rugby league clubs in England are along that stretch. It’s also very big in Australia, especially New South Wales & Queensland. While Australia has 5 clubs that play in the transnational Super Rugby, rugby union competition, the 17 (soon to be 18) team National Rugby League is a rugby league competition that is far more popular there, second only to Aussie Rules.
Rugby Union is still big in the rest of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France (especially southern France), northern Italy, Japan, Argentina & New Zealand, and still big enough in Australia, just not as big as League.
The main difference is that Rugby League is more of a stop/start game, you only get 6 “phases,” before you have to give the ball over much like downs in American football. Overall it does look a lot more like American football. Rugby Union is much more chaotic, the only forced turnovers are on penalties and teams can always contest the ball.
Both codes are close enough that sometimes you’ll get a cross code player, usually you’ll see a European Union player go play League in the NRL because they can make more money. Union only went professional in 1995.
If you want to be really precise, Sevens also exists and would be like a third sport alongside the other two.
Would differing codes make it different sports though? For example, American football and Canadian football are different codes of gridiron football (and I consider college football practically a different code than both because of the big differences but I guess that’s a story for another time lol). Wouldn’t rugby league and rugby union be both codes of the same sport — rugby football? Or am I getting the definition of “code” wrong?
I agree with your assessment, Lloyd. Softball submissions also go under the baseball section of The Ticker, which also seems analogous.
I agree with your assessment, Lloyd. Softball submissions also go under the baseball section of The Ticker, which also seems analogous.
Seems sensible to me. I’m thrilled that cricket has its own section and logo when cricket uni-news makes the Ticker, and I have no objection to the very different formats of the game – T20, ODI, Hundred, Test – all going under the one heading.
I appreciate the primer on the different Rugby codes! I didn’t realize Union didn’t go professional until 1995!
I feel the Twins’ new logo establishes a uniquely Minnesota perspective on the coming together of voices from across Minnesota through the Minnesota baseball community.
:-)
If the Twins are stealing from anybody, it’s the Mariners. Their home uniform has featured a compass rose nestled in the crook of the “M” for decades.
Are you planning on doing any review of the XFL’s first weekend? I think some of the uniforms looked better during gameplay than they did at the release. Still gimmicky, but better. Games were pretty fun to watch too.
Was not planning on that. But if you’d like to share your thoughts here and link to some pics, feel free.
I felt that every XFL uniform I saw in action was an affront to good taste & restraint.
DEFINITELY felt minor league.
Lee
Seeing all those black fleur-de-lis on that Pens jersey (and the Pittsburgh gold one on the collar) gave me the impression of some kind of weird collaboration with the New Orleans Saints.
I feel like the Texas AD speaks for a lot of people here on uni watch. Not necessarily that their uniforms are great, but rather about consequences of teams that parade an endless amount of new alternate designs each year.
He does, but he speaks from a position of luxury and can afford to take that position. Schools like Texas, Penn State, Alabama have an identity rooted in tradition and part of that brand is NOT changing for every fad that comes along. Even relatively traditional schools like Southern Cal and Georgia are known to make tweaks every now and again. Other schools rely on change being a key part of their look. It’s easy to run Texas athletics and say we don’t need the revenue from alternate uniforms. Would he say that at Baylor? Louisville?
Hate UT with all my heart but no they dont need alternates. I love seeing classic uniforms from the time I stared watching college football in the late 1960s. Tell that to Ohio St and Oklahoma. Michigan doesn’t either but it’s ok because the alternates still match the basic uniforms.
Some notes on those Fighters uniforms:
– The theme/inspiration was “baseball = heroes performing cool plays”
– Shinjo wanted a uniform that would “make children happy”
– The V stands for victory and also is meant to flatter players who are on the chubby side
– The jerseys are apparently all fullNOB, as you can see here: link
That Fighters uni looks like a Las Vegas show costume circa 1979.
I don’t know if anyone clicked on the link for the new mascot from the Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College but if you watch the video from their local news, or just skip ahead to when he comes out, its a hilarious looking headpiece. My kids really got a kick out of it too.
That mascot looks like Beefsquatch from Bob’s Burgers.
I don’t really understand Jamie’s comments about betting sponsors* in England.
The general feeling (also implied by Jamie’s comment) towards men’s clubs who will be affected by the (soft) ban on betting sponsors, is “too bad, so sad”. Why should West Ham’s women’s team be treated any different?
*Yes, I say sponsors, not ads. It’s Paul/UW’s right to use the “correct” term, and my right to use the industry-accepted term.
Are you within the industry? If not, what is your rationale (besides your “right”, which I concede).
Lee
Let’s please not (re)start this debate. It’s the term he’s more comfortable with, and that’s fine. Thanks.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to start an argument or debate, I was just curious, and only meant it as conversation. But I respect your request, no problem!
Lee
In general, I think soccer fans prefer “sponsor” because it’s what they’ve become used to over many years. I’ll still keep using “advertiser” (for soccer and for other sports), but I understand why it’s harder for soccer fans to give up on the old term.
It takes a little mental effort for me to think of the phenomenon as an advertisement, not a sponsorship, because before recently the only mental model I had for advertisements on sports uniforms was my own childhood youth baseball uniforms. The Wawa or Bottle & Can graphics on my youth ball jerseys really were sponsorships. As in, our team wouldn’t have had uniforms to wear had the store not funded the uniforms. Heck, the team probably wouldn’t have existed without the money from the store. Which describes a real, actual sponsorship, and when I first encountered European soccer in the 1990s, the advertisements looked like those old youth-ball sponsorships to me. Now that uniform advertising is becoming ubiquitous in America, it’s easier for me to see professional sports uniform advertisements as advertisements, a category unto themselves, rather than as belonging to the category of the sponsorship message on my Radnor Township Mets uniform. Anyway, for me it’s a question of the older heuristic being the one thing, even if it’s not really apt.
Try as I might, I cannot see any similarity between the Twins M logo and the M in that company logo. Other than that they’re both the capital letter M. Vertical stems versus angled stems; sans serif versus serif; truncated bottom of the middle bit versus pointy bottom of the middle bit; thin stroke versus thick stroke; no symbol tucked into the top of the letter versus symbol tucked into the top of the letter. The catalog of dissimilarity seems to apply to every detail of either M. Am I not seeing something here?