In today’s ticker, we have all the rare combos, alternate unis and helmets in the NFL for week 4, the Portland Trailblazers introduced their new “Statement” uni, a new mascot for the Seattle Kraken and more.
Uni Watch News Ticker for Oct. 2, 2022
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Baseball
MLB
- One fan on Twitter created an interesting concept for a potential throwback uniform, photoshopping the 1940s rendition of the Birds on the Bat onto a picture of Jack Flaherty. I’ve always loved this style of uniform, even going so far as to say it was the best Cardinals uniform (and best ever MLB uniform) of all time.
- Last night, the Phillies are wore their usual “getaway day” reds for Game 2 of the doubleheader, perhaps hoping to ‘change their luck’ in their final push for a Wild Card spot. (From Tim Kelly)
More
- Here’s a look at some CPBL uniforms of Seibu Lions legend Pan, Wu-Hsiung. (From Jeremy Brahm)
Football
NFL
- The New York Jets will wear a “rare” combination of green/white/black today against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
- As you’re probably aware, the New Orleans Saints will be wearing their color rash uniforms today in London, against the Minnesota Vikings. It will mark the debut of their new black helmet (since they can’t wear that helmet with anything but an alternate/CR/throwback).
- Speaking of black helmets and alternates, the Washington Commanders will be debuting both today against the Dallas Cowboys.
- The New York Football Giants will be wearing their 80s/90s throwbacks today against the Chicago Bears. ICYMI, Paul had a fantastic preview of this uniform back in July — it’s well worth the read!
- Here’s a look at the end zones for the Giants. “First time I ever recall a team recreating a Super Bowl (in this case, two Super Bowls) end zone for a throwback game, rather than an old home field design,” notes Jeff Mayer.
- The Cleveland Browns will be going orange/white/white today against the mono-black Atlanta Falcons.
- A preview for NBC’s reboot of the time-traveling series Quantum Leap features the Joe Montana-era 49ers. Unfortunately, from a uni standpoint, it’s all kinds of wrong. First off, it shows the Niners wearing white jerseys and red pants in San Francisco in 1984. They didn’t wear white jerseys at home even once during the ’80s and have never worn red pants. Furthermore, Montana is shown wearing his sleeves tucked into his shoulder pads like many modern players, but he always wore loose sleeves. Clearly, someone at NBC doesn’t Get ItTM. (From Kary Klismet)
- The Buffalo Bills will go mono-white today against the Baltimore Ravens, who will counter with their all-purple CR uniforms.
- The San Francisco 49ers will wear their 1955/1994 throwbacks Monday Night against the Los Angeles Rams.
- The Los Angeles Rams’ Jalen Ramsey, who has been a part of recent UW lore for wearing “sol” colored socks (against regulations), and who has also been fined for wearing biker shorts, thinks the NFL should focus more on player safety than his fashion choices. (Thanks, Paul)
- Former NFL-er Antonio Brown, whose last act on the gridiron involved him stripping off his jersey and running off the field, is back in the news, and not in a good way. He’s apparently not a fan of pants either.
College
- Tennessee Titans safety Kevin Byard became only the second player in MTSU history to have his jersey retired Friday night.
- Here’s a list of the best college football alternate uniforms of all time.
- The Deseret News has a story on BYU’s short-lived “bib” uniforms from 1999. (From Kary Klismet)
CFL
- Lots of uniform stuff related to National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada on Friday: BC Lions wore the Indigenous-themed logo on the helmet on Friday. Uni Watch had been aware that was happening with the helmet. Orange is the colour for this day. No surprise that the BC Lions wore orange over orange at home for the first time (and likely only time) this season. Going with orange socks as well. Orange over orange used to be their primary home uniform combo when this design was introduced in 2019 but black pants have now become the primary home pants. (From Wade Heidt)
More
- There was a “color rush” high school football game played on Friday night, and one of the teams’ NOB’s were players’ social media handles. (From Ben Whitehead)
Basketball
NBA
- Here’s the new Blazers Statement uniform, with help from Damian Lillard. (From Jeremy Brahm). And here’s the NBA release on the unis.
- Here’s a pretty cool article detailing what goes on behind the scenes at those NBA rookie photo shoots.
- A new Phoenix Suns court dropped “Phoenix” from the baseline wordmark. (From Andy Page)
- LeBron James revealed how his sons (Bronny and Brice) provided the inspiration for his latest signature shoe.
College
- The Arizona Wildcats announced the team will wear the classic home white and road blue uniforms in a nod to the 1988 team next season. The new uniforms will have the word “LUTE” in gold lettering at the inside bottom of the back of the jersey in a nod to the winningest head coach in program history.
- Minnesota has released a hype video showing its new (corporate-named) court. (From Kary Klismet)
More
- The Ticker featured an item last month about Basketball Hall of Fame induct
ees receiving orange blazers. Apparently, this year’s blazers are the first to feature custom linings celebrating each individual inductee’s basketball careers. (From Kary Klismet)
Hockey
NHL
- The Seattle Kraken have a new mascot. His name is Buoy. (From @jeffyrocket)
- Apparently, keeping Buoy a secret was a really big deal for the Kraken. Buoy, by the way, is the nephew of the Fremont Troll, the iconic Seattle sculpture that inspired his creation.
- In preseason action on Friday, the Nashville Predators wore some pretty cool Hispanic Heritage jerseys during warmups. (From Jeff Ford)
- The Athletic has a (paywalled) feature on the five different uniforms the Washington Capitals will wear this season. (From Kary Klismet)
Minors/Juniors
- In Junior “A” BCHL hockey action, the Chilliwack Chiefs were visiting the Surrey Eagles. Both teams were wearing special uniforms for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. Here were the white uniforms for Chilliwack. Here were the orange uniforms for Surrey. (From Wade Heidt)
- The Junior “A” Battlefords North Stars wore these jerseys to honor the victims and survivors of Residential Schools for Canada’s National Day of Truth and Reconciliaton. (From Wade Heidt)
- The Coquitlam Express wore special uniforms to honour National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. (Wade, again)
- The visiting Merritt Centennials wore black socks with no stripes. Not their usual black uniforms socks. Both teams wore black socks. (From Wade)
Soccer
USA
- Umbro has released a reimagined series of shirts for soccer fans. The Nations’ Collection consists of eight jerseys that have a creative take on each country’s colors. The collection includes an away kit for USA that the author of this article contends is better than the official Nike release.
International
- Ukraine: Karpaty Lviv wore pre-match shirts in support of the foreign brigades fighting in the war. (From Ed Żelaski)
Grab Bag
- Hmmm. There’s something “off” about this Syracuse camo trucker cap that Dick’s is selling. (From Max Weintraub)
- Here are all the T-20 World Cup (Cricket) uniforms released so far.
- Klaudia Alagierska-Szczepaniak of the Polish women’s national volleyball team is playing with a double decked and hyphenated name on her uniform in the world championships. (From Jeremy Brahm)
- Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie with their look for the 2022-2023 season. Their logo is normally green and yellow, but had switched it earlier in the year for support of Ukraine. (From Jeremy Brahm)
- William “Lone Star” Dietz has been a lightning rod for both sides in the controversy surrounding the Washington Commanders’ former Indigenous-themed named, cited by some as the noble inspiration for the team’s name and by others as a “fake Indian” who epitomized the problems with cultural appropriation. This story looks more closely at Dietz’s personal history and what he believed about his own heritage based on recently unearthed photos of him wearing Native ceremonial garb before his coaching days. (From Kary Klismet)
Comments (22)
The article about BYU’s “bib” uniforms comes from the Deseret News and not the “Desert News” as the text of the ticker currently states. Likely an autocorrect error but still inaccurate.
Thanks. Now fixed.
The Los Angeles Rams’ Jalen Ramsey, who has been a part of recent UW lore for wearing “sol” colored socks (against regulations), and who has also been fined for wearing biker shorts, thinks the NFL should focus more on player safety than his fashion choices.
They should focus on both. Yes, the emphasis should be on safety, but don’t use that as an excuse to break lesser rules.
I think the Quantum Leap thing has more to do with them probably not having the rights to use the 49ers likeness and using a generic look like many commercials use with NFL pitchmen. That being said, the QL reboot has much bigger problems than Joe Montana’s uniform accuracy.
Another item for the ticker: The NFL Network has changed its logo and has shown a minimalist shield during the London game.
The Nike USA kit is bad, but that Umbro jersey looks like kids’ pajamas and is definitely worse.
Agreed. The Nike away isn’t bad, it’s just not great. Where the home is a D-minus at best, the away is a C-plus. Almost anything will be better than the home, but a concept has to be well above average to be better than the away, and this isn’t.
Watching the Vikings/Saints game this morning, those Black helmets looked terrible with the all white. I think it was the lack of striping on the helmet (no, the popcorn gold stuff isn’t a stripe to me).
Would have been a much better with Black/White/Black.
HAH! I was just chatting with James Huening, and he thought the Saints would have looked better with black socks. I’ll say to you *sorta* what I said to him: with the NFL’s (incredibly stupid) rules surrounding alternate helmets, the Saints are forbidden from wearing anything but their CR/throwback/alternate uniform with the alternate helmet. Since the fauxback all-white (including white socks) is the Saints designated CR uniform, they MUST wear it as is — that is, white everything. They’re basically forbidden from wearing the black pants or black socks with it. Anything else *violates* the rules on alternate helmets. And admittedly, the NFL seems to be playing very fast and loose with this: for example, the Carolina Panthers’ designated primary jersey is black. But the black jersey/black pants combo is the designated “CR” uniform. So they can wear the black helmet ONLY when they wear black shirts, pantaloons AND socks. If they wear silver or white pants with the black jersey, they MUST wear the silver hat. I’ve yet to find an actual rationale for this, but originally the second shell was permitted *only* for throwbacks, but in order to permit a second shell for other wearings, the team MUST wear it ONLY with either the CR or throwback or alternate uniform (all of which can be worn a maximum of three times/season). It makes *almost* no sense, other than they want to keep teams from wearing the alternate more than 3x/season. It’s also why, for example, the Giants can wear their “legacy” (throwback) uniform — which they are wearing today — with the darker shell helmet to match the uniform worn in the 80s/90s, BUT they can’t wear it with the white throwback uniform…because that’s been designated as their CR uni. Can’t wear an alt helmet with BOTH the CR and the throwback. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But hey, this is the NikeFL.
I expect going forward these rules will be loosened and Nike will be able to introduce some form of “City” uniform which will look nothing like anything any team has ever worn, because they can’t print $$$ fast enough with all the fools and their partable money buying alternate gear.
I get the rules. It’s the look that’s no good (as well as the rules) :-)
Yeah, I get that you get it. I think *both* of our points (made differently) is that the alternate helmets would look BETTER when paired with different uniform elements. Honestly, as much as I HATE the Saints mono-black look, I think it would be immeasurably improved by wearing the new alternate helmet. But the (new?) rules prohibit this. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Same goes for either black pants or black socks with what the jersey they wore today. But they can’t. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The collection includes an away kit for USA that the author of this article contents is better than the official Nike release.
Contents should be contends.
Thanks, now fixed.
Ok, so let me be the first to say it. Buoy the Kraken mascot is inane.
But Flava Flav would be the greatest hype man for the mascot …. “YEAH BUOYYYYYY!!!!”””
The Umbro merch all features the same exact pattern, the only difference between each being the bespoke crests and the colors. The crests are honestly the nicest thing about this concept, everything else is executed terribly in my opinion.
I don’t think these designs are meant to be what Umbro would produce for each team if they were the official manufacturer. Nike’s lawyers would be wanting a quiet word with them if that were the case! I imagine they are marketing these as a range of football style jerseys taking inspiration from each country. This is why they have the same pattern – because it’s a clothing range not a kit. And why the team badges are just different enough from the real ones. I guess they must have taken legal advice before doing this, but they are sailing really close to the wind on this one!
Another thing:
Bill Belichick is wearing a Croatia shield patch on the front of his New England warmup. There also appears to be a Croatia flag on his left sleeve.
Must have been a thing about culture; Matt Patricia was wearing an Italian flag as well.
The Phillies wore red on Saturday night because if they wore red on Sunday there would have been a red-red game (The Nats as the home team had decided to wear red on Sunday.).
USA will have a team at the 2024 T20 Cricket World Cup, since we’re cohosting it with the West Indies. I’m sure USA will have a new uniform design by then, but the current USA uniform, what we would be wearing if we had qualified for this year’s World Cup in Australia, is here:
link
Same uniform for our men and women. It’s a fairly conservative look by international cricket standards, so I hope our 2024 uniforms are a tweak instead of a redesign.
The new b-ball court at Minnesota looks like they’ve deepened the color of the floor. Last few years have brought many complaints about the bleached white-looking floor.