monkeypower

On 11/6/2023 at 6:28 PM, Brian in Boston said:

Branding a Rockford, Illinois-based sports franchise with Chicago as its place name is the equivalent of branding a Springfield, Massachusetts-based team with Boston as its place name. Which is to say, equally asinine.

Glomming on to the place name of a higher profile, more populous city located 70 to 80 miles away from your actual home market isn't likely to convince anyone living in the larger municipality to take a rooting interest in your team. What's more, locals in the actual host community could regard the decision to brand as a franchise from the larger city as being dismissively disrespectful. It makes absolutely no sense to risk alienating the potential fans in your own backyard by attempting to "be more attractive to advertisers" who, quite frankly, would have to be brain dead not to realize that your team isn't operating in the locale you're claiming it does.

The Chicago Rush (of Rockford) is the minor-pro sports equivalent of cosplay.   

At least the Angels had 40 years in Anaheim, under two different names already, and are a big 4 team. For something like minor-league, I'd imagine you'd want to be as local as you can get.

9 hours ago, vtgco said:

Also I don't get it, are these all brands for one new touring team? Or are they alternate brands for existing teams when they play out-of-market games... and if so, is it one-to-one (e.g. Vancouver is always Seattle, Saskatchewan is always Minnesota, etc.) or can any team be any brand at any given time?

They're not real teams.

The NLL is starting a youth grassroots program in markets that don't currently have teams and creating "teams" for each of the markets to use for said program.

These are all pretty fun so far. I don't like the Kraken being forced into the Shipwrecks logos though, especially because there's absolutely no connection.

2 hours ago, GDAWG said:

 

The arena where Panther City plays (Dickie's Arena) seats at least 12,000, so that is not a good sign.  The Dallas Wings of the WNBA have 1,000 more people than Panther City, and their arena only seats 7,000.

This upcoming season is also the last on the current lease for Panther City.

The Wings owner also owns Panther City FWIW.

2 hours ago, GDAWG said:

NLL wants to be the next major league......then change the name of Panther City.  I think that name for their lone Texas teams sets them back from being an actual major league.  I don't know what attendance is like compared to the NHL.  

Here are last year's NLL numbers.

Looking at this, and based on some scuttlebutt (including their schedule dates for this upcoming season), we might not have to worry about the Panther City name much longer.

The NLL is starting NLL UnBOXed, which they are calling "a new grassroots youth participation and fan engagement initiative designed to bring the NLL’s fast-paced lacrosse game play to more young boys and girls in more communities across North America".

The first nine markets in the program are Baltimore, Charlotte, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Montréal, Ottawa, Salt Lake City, Seattle, St. Louis, and Tampa Bay with the goal is to build up to 60 markets by the 2028 Olympics (which I believe includes active NLL markets too). The first phase is an elementary and middle school phys. ed curriculum with a lacrosse equipment endowment program.

They are also creating "teams" for each of the markets, the first released being the Tampa Bay Snowbirds.

Are they still doing the roadshow even with having cities? Because if so, I don't know how much cities matter. Would they be able to build up local fanbases?

5 hours ago, BBTV said:

I feel like the Jets are trying to mask their self-inflicted wounds here.

 

The helmet, because of it's awesome finish, often appears black - or at least a very-dark green that clashes with their green jersey and green pants.  The black pants are bad, but IMO work with the helmet more than their green does.  It's an adjustment to mask a problem that they themselves created, but they can't fix it so gotta do what they gotta do.

 

Obviously their throwbacks are their superior look, but their current one could be salvaged with a helmet that better matches the green, the throwback logo on it (they could round the letters some if they need it to match the rest of their branding), and smaller wordmark.  Relatively-minor things that should be easily doable, but would have a tremendous impact.

 

Until then (which is unlikely to happen), we're going to see more of this, and I have to reluctantly say that it's probably a better look for them.

For tonight's game specifically, they were going to wear all white until Breece Hall tweeted about wanting the black pants on Thursday and then Woody Johnson announced the change Saturday. Going with the black pants in tonight's game doesn't have any connection to the helmet colour.

I posted about this on previous pages, but I'm more convinced now that increased wearing of the white jerseys is a result of the Jets org not liking this jersey set anymore and feeling that the white jersey is the better of the two options they have. Looking at home games (read: where they have the choice of jersey),

• 2019 - 4 green, 3 black, 1 white
• 2020 - 5 green, 2 black, 1 white
• 2021 - 4 green, 3 black, 2 white
• 2022 - 1 green, 3 black, 4 white
• 2023so far including tonight - 1 green, 2 throwback (white), 2 white. The rest of the season will include one black jersey game and, per the Falcons jersey schedule having white when they visit the Jets, appears at least one more chosen green jersey game

It's also not like they have a history of wearing white at home because they didn't really with this set until last season and they only used to wear white at home like two times a year, at most, with the previous set.

Right now, if you were to ask me, I would expect the Jets to change the jerseys next year and probably to this year's throwbacks. The fans generally prefer that logo and more important, Woody Johnson appears to also prefer it.

12 hours ago, kaleb_girod said:

Hmm, I actually had to find photos comparing the Reebok and Nike versions of green and I must say they’re definitely different. Since I’m not a Jets fan, I never directly noticed the difference until just now, but I could totally see why some fans wouldn’t like that change, especially being the primary color. I guess it’s like the Saints gold issue where the fans don’t like the shade of it (hence the khaki comparison), but tbh the Reebok gold was the same color, just shiny. That’s what Saints fans seem to dislike so much. But it’s not like one was completely and noticeably different unlike the Jets.

You don't appear to be getting what I'm saying.

The issue isn't really the shade of green. The issue is more how that shade of green manifests on a jersey that is disliked. If the 98-18 jerseys or if this season's Sack Exchange throwbacks were in this current green, I don't know if this discussion is happening.

It's also a bit of a self fulfilling discussion because the Jets keep wearing the whites at home. Like I said before, I can't speak to the organization's decisions to wear the whites so much. Looking back through the Gridiron Uniform Database, they didn't wear the whites at home all that much until the last two seasons.

12 hours ago, kaleb_girod said:

And yeah, could be lighting as you say or the different materials, but to me it’s always been pretty noticeable.

It is the different materials. Like I also said, I don't think anyone is denying the Jets jerseys and helmets don't match, I'm saying that hasn't yet been stated as a reason for not wearing the green jerseys.

Green has been an especially hard colour to match across different brands and the different materials used for different equipment. Nike has had trouble with the Jets green for the jerseys and they were the ones that created the jerseys. Riddell paints the helmets and their closest shade of green paint doesn't exactly match what Nike has for the fabric. 

The Minnesota Wild have different coloured green helmets depending on what brand of helmet a player uses. You can also see the jersey, the pants and the gloves are also slightly different greens as well. Different materials handled by different brands.

It's just a current manufacturing issue with the colour green.

12 hours ago, kaleb_girod said:

Unfortunately since I’m new here I’m not sure how to include images, or else I’d be able to show examples. I’ve tried, but no luck so far. Maybe some help lol.

Just post the url of the image directly into your post and it should automatically appear.

20 minutes ago, kaleb_girod said:

I’m just really confused about why Jets fans don’t like the green jerseys or why they weren’t well received. I get black is the cool and trendy color, but wasn’t Gotham Green supposed to be a big deal?

Like I said above, I don't believe it is really a widespread issue with the green per se, it's an issue with the jerseys as a whole where the white jersey is like the lesser of two evils for a lot of people. Some people don't like the shade of green but I've never seen that be a huge refrain. If you are going to wear a questionable outfit, would you rather wear it in a garish colour or would you rather wear it in white with the garish as a accent?

I can't speak to the locker room's nor the organization's thoughts on the white jerseys. Maybe the players aren't too hot on the green or the organization likes the whites, we can't really speak to that.

Like I also said above, it will remain to be seen if any jersey switch would change the feelings around the green jerseys.

21 minutes ago, kaleb_girod said:

Like I said in an earlier reply, the only thing that’s stuck out to me about the Jets current set is how the helmet green is noticeably off from the jersey and pants green. That’s the only possible issue I could think of with the Jets green jerseys hardly being worn.

That's just a unfortunate issue of different the jerseys and the helmets being made of different materials along with the paint treatment on the helmets. I don't think that's anyone's true problem with the greens.

2 hours ago, gothedistance said:

When did NYJ start the white over black look? Was it during the first year of Robert Saleh and Zach Wilson?

It was, which was the 2021 season. They played TNF in Indianapolis and wanted to do something "special" for the occasion but were limited because they were the away team.

Then they brought it back last season for funsies and managed to reel off four straight wins in it, so here we are.

4 hours ago, FinsUp1214 said:

I’m very intrigued and curious about this. Is it green in general that they hate, or the particular shade as opposed to other greens? Or something else about it?

 

This is all 100% coming from a place of pure curiosity, as I’m mostly just surprised to hear of a team’s traditional primary color that gets flak from its fanbase. I haven’t heard many cases of that before and would love to understand why that is (or see if I’m misunderstanding this altogether, which is totally possible haha).

4 hours ago, ruttep said:

If I had to guess, green is the "boring" or "safe" option. All white is "" and black jerseys/pants are "". There probably is an element of morale to it, where trend-hopping makes them feel stronger or something. I don't know. This is all speculation, but that's the sense that I get from how players and fans react to uniforms on social media.

I'm seeing some mixed to "whatever, cool that Woody listens to his players though" reviews from the Jets subreddit about this week.

From what I've seen online, I think it's less green being the "boring" or "safe" option, it's that the jerseys have not been super well received/overstayed their welcome and that the white jersey is the seemingly less egregious option. This then feeds into the all white trend and then black is off on its own getting the alternate/flame emoji pop (though I have been seeing some more pushback on the black, at least on the subreddit).

This whole jersey discussion has been brought to the forefront with this year's throwbacks and people realizing that this is year five of the Jets current set. I think if you were to take the temperature of the Jets fanbase, it would definitely be moving towards switching to the throwbacks fulltime. If that were to be the case, I don't know if the green jerseys would be as maligned.

The Medicine Hat Tigers have better Flyers jerseys than the Flyers.

Obviously the Flyers would need to flip the orange and black, but just steal these jerseys.

Retail baseball jerseys seem like such a racket. The cheaper versions won't have sleeve patches or numbers and then the ones that have everything are so expensive.

You can bemoan the cheaper NHL jerseys being Fanatics but at least you get a complete jersey.

47 minutes ago, Kramerica Industries said:

I'm sure I'm late to the party, but I see the Flyers have returned to the double logo center ice look, which suits them and their logo so much better. Most teams make make more sense with single, large logos at center ice, but teams whose logos are more horizontal than vertical are more suited for the double logo look. Habs need to be the next to make this switch back.

I think the Ducks could as well.

I really like the double logo look and I can't explain why. I can't say that I prefer it, and I think if every team did it I wouldn't like it as much, but I think more teams should do it.

7 hours ago, CitizenTino said:

Has it been explained why so many teams that fully paint their end zones are leaving a small strip just inside the goal line and out-of-bounds lines unpainted this year? Design trend? League request?

 

The Rams/Chargers started doing it a couple years ago when SoFi opened, but I’ve noticed a lot more fields with it that way this year.

The only possible explanation I could come up with was that the NFL wants a consistent high-contrast surface to make it easier for officials to rule whether players are inbounds on close plays. I figured it had to be for functional reasons because, aesthetically, it’s clearly worse than painting all the way to the boundary.

My thinking is that the strip is a buffer zone of sorts to prevent overspray onto the white endlines/boundary lines when painting and then also to prevent smudging the paint into the endlines/boundary lines when cleaning the paint off.

It appears to be used in the stadiums where the endzones need to be changed (SoFi, MetLife) and then some teams who are just doing single game designs.

2 hours ago, the admiral said:

I think from now on, if they weren't before, any no-trade list should have to be on file with the league office. Call it a learning opportunity; Sens didn't really commit a punishable offense here.

I think it depends on how honest the Senators were being. As the story has been reported, Vegas asked Ottawa if the NTC was valid and Ottawa said it wasn't. I can't see it not being a punishable offence if Ottawa knowingly lied to Vegas or were derelict of duty.

2 minutes ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

Yeah, I get that. When I made it, the statement was more of a "you're embracing sports betting to a large degree, let's be clear where your lines are as to how much you've embraced them. What is severe enough to warrant half a season, but not so bad to boot the kid entirely?" As far as I'm aware, there's been no real attempt to make this explicitly clear.

There's been enough smoke and specifically crafted statements, plus essentially cutting a deal for the 41 games and not appealing, that he didn't bet on the outcomes of games but may have proxy bet on hockey futures.

Like I said, not betting on your own sport is pretty much been a fundamental rule of playing a professional sport forever. It's pretty clear. Regardless of who the NHL embraces as a partner and a sponsor, they can have different rules for their players/employees. The NHL has deals with Anheuser-Busch but I'm pretty sure it would be frowned upon if a player showed up drunk to a team event.

5 hours ago, Sodboy13 said:

I remain at least partially convinced, as I have for years, that the people running the PWHPA and now PWHL want to run women's pro hockey into the ground.

Anecdotally speaking, from stories I've heard from people (which could very well just be limited to the experiences and beliefs of the people telling these anecdotes), women's hockey has some systemic issues, starting in the minor hockey levels, surrounding decision makers and establishments.

I don't think they truly want to run women's pro hockey into the ground, I think it's a symptom of larger issues.

Watching the Ducks-Bruins highlights, I find these Bruins jerseys to be a headscratcher.

I do like the simpler logo they're going with but the gold on the jerseys was a bad choice.

1 hour ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

Given how much sports betting is being shoved down our throats, and how much the league benefits from it,  I feel like we need them to explain what he did to avoid looking like hypocrites.

Hypocrites?

The NHL having deals with sports betting sites doesn't mean players are allowed to bet. That's pretty much been a fundamental rule of playing a professional sport forever.

On 10/18/2023 at 1:19 PM, monkeypower said:

Hmm...

Side note: is this tweet from who I think it is @infrared41@IceCap@CS85?

Update to this, the Ducks 2023-24 media guide uses "purple", "plum" and "eggplant" within the span of a page and a half.

I didn't know which thread to post this in, but Texas Tech seems to have announced a switch to Adidas from Under Armour after being visited by Adidas and Nike earlier this football season.

Online scuttlebutt says UA had it in the contract to match any offer but didn't and suggests that Adidas's offer was higher because of Adidas's relationships with Mahomes and PGA golfer Ludvig Aberg who is also a Tech alum. There was also some alleged displeasure with UA from Tech's basketball teams and the track and field team.

1 hour ago, DCarp1231 said:

I feel like we can trace back and attribute the number shuffling to QB/WR/RB/TE Taysom Hill

Nah, it's from high school and college having much more lax numbering rules.

18 hours ago, Red Comet said:

Pretty sure that’s supposed to be more like a witch doctor’s headdress. Still inaccurate, but not something that would rile enough people up to care. 

That's what I kind of thought at first too but upon googling voodoo headdresses, that's very much looking like a First Nations headdress and not a voodoo one. The feather orientation, the feather on the beads hanging down off of circle shapes, the pattern on the headband, it's very First Nations. Google it.

I'll leave it at that before we cross over into mod territory.

1 hour ago, Sodboy13 said:

Yeah, you get adjusted to the motion in the backfield after a couple games.

Oh, I wasn't talking about the actual game play, especially not backfield motion because of the CFL. I was talking about the actual movement of teams between leagues that has been tracked in this thread. I'm fascinated by the car crash.

This thread has been fun to read through and I'm so confused about all this movement, but I think that's part of the arena football experience.

On 10/5/2023 at 10:01 PM, Dilbert said:

 

I had an AFL PS2 game and picked New Orleans as my then favourite because I liked the logo.

I really hope this isn't real. Not that I'm super up on all of voodoo and all the apparel, but that clearly reads as a First Nation headdress and that seems like a wild move for a 2023 logo.