gosioux76

Good effort. That’s some serious calisthenics in justifying those “Uniteds.”

I find the name kind of silly, too, though I don't think we need to hold KC to the same standard as European "sporting clubs" that are more true to the name. It just becomes a slippery slope into that same cesspool in which we regurgitate how Real Salt Lake isn't tied to royalty and how the franchises in D.C., Minnesota and Atlanta don't represent the mergers of two separate clubs the way the Uniteds in Manchester, Newcastle, etc., do. MLS has long been doing this sort-of euro cosplaying with its branding and I've come to terms with it. The Sporting KC brand is awkward absent of that part of the argument.

Spot on for New England and Houston. And I also agree with you on KC -- their logo isn't great on its own, and doesn't lend itself to simplification. I don't recognize that Atlanta crest, though. This is what I've known as their primary crest, and it could easily be simplified just by removing the words and leaving the A inside a thinner-bordered roundel. Charlotte, too, can easily be simplified by using only the crown or leaning on its ligature mark, which is reminiscent of Chelsea in the '90s.

I'm not sure I'd advocate for this logo in specific (modernized, perhaps), but I always felt the WFL's Southern California Sun was ahead of its time with its color choices. I'd love to see it brought back. I'm not sure I loved the magenta top /orange bottom combo as much as I do the white jersey, but nevertheless, the palette is appealing to me.

Couldn't disagree more with this. The official, formal badges in MLS are too busy -- you don't need words identifying the team name when the symbol itself should be enough. Every MLS club could simplify the badge on its kits, except for Portland, which already does it. Same goes for the bigger leagues. Arsenal would be better off with the cannon logo it uses on change kits than the full 2002 crest. Chelsea's scepter-holding dragon can stand on its own. Tottenham, meanwhile, does it right. The best thing about this LAFC change kit is the badge.

Ha! I can't argue that point.

It's worth pointing out here that this escalated by your questioning how somebody could attempt to justify ads. (I'd argue that there's a difference between "justifying" ads and trying to understand why we've arrived to this point, but I don't think it would do much good.) What I've done since is explain myself, to which you disagreed, which is, by definition, an actual argument that I've willfully entered into, without bother. My primary point in this argument is that the economics of professional sports are changing for both consumers and billionaire owners. As Forbes notes, MLB franchises combined lost $1.14 billion during the past two years, prompting them to take on $2 billion in debt and inject another $1.5 billion of equity to buoy their balance sheets. While it's true that prices in some markets have increased for tickets, concessions, merch, etc. that point leaves out the increased expenses for salaries (both players and everyone else), inflation, supply chain costs, etc. It's not as if the the extra $10 we pay for a beer is going directly into the owner's wallet. None of this means uniform ads are necessary, and I've never argued here that they are, particularly because of the blight they add to the uniforms. But billionaire or not, there seems to be this underlying belief that people who own for-profit businesses should turn away revenue opportunities to adhere to aesthetic purity. So why didn't they do this 20 years ago? It's a good question. Perhaps it's because owners weren't coming out of a money-losing pandemic, at a time with skyrocketing payrolls but declining attendance, and didn't realize companies would be willing to fork over $17-20 million a year for a four-inch patch on a sleeve. If you ran a business, would you turn that down? And if you wouldn't turn it down, would you call it greed?

The Twins were offering $28.5M to the Giants' $27M. So you're right: Their deal was $280/10.

From reading The Athletic this morning, the Twins were offering 10 years at a higher average annual salary than the Giants offer, but Correa took the extra years instead. Just maddening.

Listen, I get it. You and the much of the rest of the world see professional sports franchises as the domains of billionaires whose abundant wealth should preclude them from needing an extra couple of million from jersey ads. I think that's a reasonable expectation. But when I say these are mid-sized businesses, it's not something I'm making up. I shared the link earlier to Forbes' valuations rankings, which includes data on annual revenue and operating income (or, in the case of 1/3 of all MLB teams, an operating loss.) Maybe this is a better example: The St. Louis Cardinals last year generated annual revenue of $287 million, which would place them at No. 67 among the largest privately-held companies in St. Louis. Sitting right above it on that list is a tire company, and below it is a transportation company. If you were an employee of one of those companies, would you take issue with finding a way to add another few million in revenue to the total? Of course not, you'd celebrate it. Just because the owner might already be wealthy doesn't mean you don't want the company to get bigger. But because of their higher profile, and the role they play in our communities, we hold sports franchises to a different standard. Also, the economics of baseball just aren't as great as they used to be. As Forbes noted, most MLB teams are still trying to dig themselves out of the hole created in 2020 by the pandemic. And the revenue from jersey ads will be coming at a time when revenue growth from sponsorships has begun slowing league-wide. Much of the revenue from helmet ads, meanwhile, is likely to be earmarked for a $50-million-a-year player bonus pool created by the new CBA. (You guys should read that Forbes story. Lots of good stuff in there. ) We're approaching an era in which economic pressures will be leading owners to place less value on purist aesthetics, the same way it did a generation ago when ads began reappearing on the outfield walls inside stadiums. Please don't assume that I'm making some contrarian case just for the sake of it. I think it's important to look at these things not just from the lens of fans, but from the perspective of them as businesses. That doesn't make me a shill for billionaires. It just makes me someone who wants to see it from more than one angle. And if all you want is someone to agree with you without discussion, then you can scroll past my posts. I'm cool with that.

So we’ve gotten to the “my guy” stage, I see. You made a good argument about rising prices, which is a good point. But what about those rising expenses, and the continually exploding player salaries, and a need to hedge against declining attendance and TV ratings? That gap between the haves and have nots in baseball is even more reason for a smaller club to want additional streams of revenue. And I’ll say this for a third time: you don’t have to like it, but these are for-profit companies that need to grow or maintain profit margins in an environment of rapidly increasing expenses. These organizations may have multi-billion-dollar valuations, but in terms of operating revenue they are mid-sized businesses at best. You might think of them as the playthings of billionaires but they’re still businesses, no different than an accounting firm or manufacturer. The one difference is that most of us put them on a pedestal to be something bigger than they are. And since it bears repeating — again — I don’t care for it either. But what you or I think about it doesn’t really matter.

OK, so let’s go back to your original point. Who is suggesting that uniform ads are good or that you should be OK with them? I guess this really leaves me wondering why you’d seem so opposed to having more interesting discourse than just “ads are bad,” I’d think a message board meant to discuss these topics wouldn’t want to become an echo chamber.

He certainly appears to be a man on a mission.

This reads to me like Roman numerals or, like, the model name for a certain type of Texas Instruments calculator.

Again, I haven't seen any arguments on here suggesting you or anybody else should accept it. At the same time, trying to explain these ads in the context of business decision-making, rather than blindly attributing it to corporate greed, also doesn't make someone in favor of it. In other words, it's possible to want to understand how we got to this point and ALSO not like that these ads exist. But it seems as if anything that doesn't translate loosely into "this sucks, it's terrible, greedy owners, cash grab, etc. etc" is, to you, an attempt to justify the necessity of uniform ads. If it helps, I'll boil it down to this: Ads suck, they're ugly, and I wish uniforms were the way they used to be. But there isn't a for-profit business in America today that isn't making every attempt they can to maintain and grow their profit margins. I'm not inside a MLB board room to know the exact motivations behind things like jersey advertisements, but I'm not so cynical to just assume this is all about lining someone's pockets. I don't like it, but I also don't live in a fantasy world, nor do I own a time machine.

You’re 100% right. But I really think you guys are arguing with a ghost. I don’t think I’ve read any post in this thread that suggests ads on uniforms are a good thing or should be accepted. Speaking for myself, I’ve attempted to point out that some of assumptions underlying that disdain are presumptuous. But again, it seems all you're looking for is discourse that supports a full-throated condemnation of something, which seems to me like the wrong way to conduct a discussion board.

I haven’t seen any comments on this board suggesting anybody is OK with it. There’s a difference between rational explanations for why something exists and actually endorsing it.

What's confusing about it?

Yes, St. Louis area. And that's fair. They still seem to consider where I am "southern illinois," though I realize that's a pretty broad definition.

I live in Southern Illinois. Can't say I understand what you're saying.

This video tweeted by The Rock yesterday attempts to bring you inside the design process. It shows The Rock and Dany Garcia offering feedback, but their input seems largely superficial. They otherwise just seem otherwise to be awed by what UA created for them. At one point, Garcia calls them the greatest football uniforms ever made.

I'm disappointed they dropped the sword stripe that was down the middle of the 2020 Battlehawks' helmet.

Lots of monochrome action going on here. Strange that they've yet to give closer looks at the helmets.

Considering the team's name, I presume that's meant to evoke an oil slick.

I was thinking the same thing. Just wild. And to think, from the perspective of the TV viewer, these older small arenas don't look all that different from their larger, modern counterparts.