Digby

Oh boy, those swoopy butt stripes are beyond hideous. This template will go down in history infamously as the Speedo silhouette.

I've imagined it would end up being something like, MLS 1 gets to be in Leagues Cup and MLS 2 doesn't. Maybe they get to be the bone thrown to the US Open Cup, at least the American teams. But that would get logistically dicey given the MLS geographic element that other soccer leagues mostly don't have, and even if it doesn't carry the stink of true "relegation", I just don't see any group of owners consenting to a system where they won't have a guaranteed date on the Messi World Tour/its sequels, or miss out on the big funds of Mexican fans that Leagues Cup is designed to provide. Feels like those big spectacle business models are designed to wean MLS off the expansion fees and toward something that, idk, "sustainable" doesn't feel like the right word here but you know.

Would be cool if Barclays hadn't done it 12 years ago/if we knew these things aren't just giant, obnoxious billboards for advertisements. For NYCFC anything is an upgrade, but ick, that stadium is looking like those big square modern cheap-luxury apartment buildings that everyone hates.

An armadillo-baseball concept is kind of cool but the prospect of that as the basis for a creepy, uncanny, bastardized A's rebrand is nauseating.

The other benefit to 40 -- and this has never seemed to be a rumor, only speculation from online people, but it does make a lot of sense to me -- is that it would allow for MLS to form two tiers with pro/rel between them, but not outside of them. Is this likely to happen? I kinda doubt it, I think there are more "against" than "for" reasons that I can think of, even when I put on my cynical capitalist suit as a thought exercise. But I would never totally rule out MLS doing the sort of thing that looks like "traditional world football" on the surface but is actually the Mickey Mouse version.

So that's one group escaping the inconvenience, cool, but it's still a nuisance of a policy, especially for women who are more likely to rely on (totally reasonably sized!) purses and bags. You can't get into a Bruins game for less than $150, why treat customers like schoolchildren? (Just kidding, I know why, there's a $15 bag locker truck (but only at one corner's entrance) and the beers inside are up to $18 this year.)

I am so, so tired of gigantic screens bigger than the playing surface. Everyone has tiny screens and then there's also huge screens. It's all too much.

NYCFC updated branding package. With some new extra colors and icons and some very cool, old-New-York fonts. Seems unlikely that any of this will be used very much in practical ways, this being MLS and a CFG team, so kind of a lot of money and effort for a press release and some new graphics on a Tuesday. But here we are. https://www.newyorkcityfc.com/brand

Rolling into my middle-aged phase as a childfree person is like half of my personality trait, and even I think this is a bad take.

it’s basically beginning and ending with: how much money can we convince Ryan Smith to contribute? My big takeaway from this conversation is that there aren’t really any good ideas for expansion or relocation.

I’m sure they are. But also maybe it’s not award-level coaching to leave Jaylen Brown open on every possession in the first quarter.

Halftime and the Celtics lead the allegedly resurgent Warriors by a score of 82-38. lmao.

Much as I love a snow game, I can understand why this is maybe not a sustainable thing. LAFC coaches and players were all over the post-game saying this shouldn't have been played, though of course they said that after losing. Still, this is why I just blink and nod slowly whenever someone tries to push the fall-to-spring schedule scheme for MLS.

I thought the same. Seattle had the alternate light blue socks it turned out, but didn't really matter in the context here. Third kits aren't ONLY money grabs. I liked how the new Sounders branding looked on all the signage surrounding the pitch, though.

There have been rumblings of an NWSL rebrand in the works, so I wonder if they're just waiting til that goes through to start pushing the league as a brand itself.

One time I ordered an MLS jersey from a site that sells more youth-soccer teamwear than pro replica jerseys, because the photos on the listing led me to believe they had miraculously/accidentally stocked a bunch of sponsorless versions. Imagine my disappointment when the package showed up and the sponsor was, in fact, printed on as normal.

Love to see Denver wearing a black jersey with white numbers and dark red cuffs... while on their mostly-blue home... against the Miami Heat...

That's 3 plain-with-accent-cuffs white home shirts in 4 years for the USA (counting the women's exclusives in here), and 3 straight royal blue aways. It's always seemed silly to me to have international kits on short cycles given how rarely they're worn, and it seems even more pointless when so little changes between them. Really haven't understood Nike's philosophy with the US teams for a while now, especially at a time where I think they've done quite well for all their big international teams.

I dig that one but I think their away is my favorite color application of this gradient teamwear thing. Greenish-dark grey is an interesting color and plays nicely with the red and neon yellow combination.

Hope they didn't sell too many of those pine needle jerseys yet! Absolutely wild to go from the same sponsor for 12 years to the same sponsor for 1 match.

Personally I'd make that tradeoff 10 out of 10 times.

Any time the basketball logo rule comes up, the conversation turns into a bikeshedding of the highest order.

Not permitted inside TD Garden. Unless you buy the souvenir version at their own Pro Shop.

Phone, wallet, keys, glasses, mobile charger, meds, tampons, hand sanitizer, gloves. I mean, not all of those things at once, but some combination of 3-5 of those items seems pretty reasonable. If I need a glasses change and my mobile charger with me I'll usually take a crossbody with me instead of cramming things into every pocket I've got. The Pro level of Pixels and iPhones wouldn't even fit in one of these bags!

I'm choosing to consider this an NHL bad decision becuase I assume it's the Jacobs' fault. The Bruins have a new bag policy for home games that bans any bags larger than 6 x 4 x 1.5 inches. Even if they're clear. Only exception is, conveniently, shopping bags for any purchased items from the Garden pro shop in the train station. (I assume this is also in effect for Celtics games and concerts, but I ran into it first via the Bruins.) 6 x 4 is absolutely tiny for a bag! I get banning huge backpacks or whatever but come on, this is a nuisance.