gosioux76

If those location predictions bear out, it'll be an awfully Texas-heavy league, which could also help explain why its operations would be centralized in Dallas. But you'd think having more than one-third of the league located in a single state would be risky when trying to draw appeal from a broader nationwide audience.

Good lord. The Padres appear to have used 1980s tourist t-shirts as their City Connect inspiration. Approximately one hour after these uniforms are revealed I expect to hear cries of "they should adopt these full time."

Even if there isn't a source, this idea at least makes sense as to why they're not wearing the orange jerseys.

I agree on this that, at first glance, they're unnecessary. My first instinct was that these were designed primarily because of an upcoming City Edition design. But then some of you smartly pointed out that the SATX could be an amalgam of San Antonio and Austin, rather than the standard airport code abbreviation elsewhere. Now it all makes a lot more sense. New secondary marks on their own might be unnecessary, but knowing they're likely part of a brand extension designed to make a claim to the Austin market makes a lot more sense. The Austin metro area already nearly rivals the size of the San Antonio metro area in terms of population, and since it's likely to keep growing at a rapid pace, the physical dividing lines between the two will continue to edge closer. It's not unreasonable to think that, one day in the near future, it could evolve into some form of joint MSA -- maybe not exactly like Dallas-Ft. Worth due to the greater distance between them, but for marketing purposes, something treated as a single media market. So how's this for a nutty prediction: Within 10 years, we won't have the San Antonio Spurs anymore. We'll have the Texas Spurs.

I could see it if they're transitioning the brand to something entirely different, like Anaheim did. But going back to something they'd worn before is hardly jarring for consumers. Seems silly not to wear the uniforms you've worn all year just to have some contrived transitionary period from one blue to another. Unless they've really gotten tired of orange, which seems more plausible.

Yeah, I understand the general suggestion. I just think the logic is flawed. If they're switching to royal blue next year, wearing navy now isn't the same, and it's barely a passable placeholder if that's the intent. You wouldn't hold one up to the other and say, "eh, close enough." But even then, I don't get how a decision being made for next season would have any bearing on choices being made for this season. Maybe I'm missing the point.

OK, I guess I get it if the plan is to wear an alt that you plan on promoting to a full-time regular the next season. The Oilers one still seems odd to me unless the issue here is a sudden aversion to orange.

I'm not sure I get the logic of this. Not saying it's wrong, I'm just not sure I get the strategy. Like, why would wearing something now — in the most-watched portion of the season — have any bearing on what they will or will not wear next year? Is the idea that they'd squeeze a little more revenue out of something before they drop it next year?

I get what you're saying, and I'm sure there is probably even a certain amount of local pride in using that abbreviation, but you can pretty much say something similar for every major American city at this point. It's not unique. But perhaps it's better to think of this in the same way we think of the various City Editions in NBA and MLB. The idea isn't to market the brand to a broad audience, but to a hyper local one. So the SATX logos might not work for me, but they're probably not supposed to.

I really like the Texas mark, but this demand for abbreviated nicknames is getting pretty old. Do San Antonians really refer to their town as SATX?

That's logical, but only from the perspective of trying to retrofit an existing logo to an existing name. If the exercise here is to somehow simulate the USFL as if it had continued, and the goal of the brand was to elicit winged helmet imagery a la Mercury, I'd have to think the designers could have come up with something a little more direct. Using logos from the leagues that weren't or might never have been created is certainly an understandable convenience, but if you have to do some mental gymnastics just to understand how the logo connects with the name, then it just doesn't work.

Yes! Those were the seats we bought. My kids aren't really football fans, but the spectacle of it all, plus the inexpensive tickets, made it seem worthwhile. It's not very often that a spring league football team generates so much fan interest that local vendors produce gear based around a chant created by fans. I've never quite seen a new team from a fringe league take a city by storm the way the BattleHawks did.

I agree. I have the same issue with the Panthers helmet. As great as it is, it would be even better if they filled made the panther head solid like the original. Also, on a separate topic, I've come around on the Pittsburgh Maulers look. It might feel lesser compared with some of the other designs, but I tend to think it's quite nice. I find myself drawn to them when they're on my TV. Admittedly, it could have something with the fact that it offers some variety in an otherwise red-heavy league, but I find myself enjoying the look.

Yes, I came to a similar conclusion. Perhaps it’s not that the black looks better, but that it came to look normal. The tough part of this is that it makes me think the light blue and burgundy simply don’t work together, which clearly shouldn’t be the case.

Apologies if this topic has been beaten to death, but this is the first time all year where I’ve really watched the Avs in action and their uniforms are atrocious. is that an unpopular opinion? I can’t recall the general sentiment on here. It might be one of the rare instances where the use of a non-core color (black) actually made sense. The blue pants and numbers are really unappealing. It almost looks as if they’re wearing mismatched pants.

I’m not sure how a space that small can be described as “empty.”

I suppose that's fair. But even then, I would presume contract length in these circumstances is as much a marketing ploy than it is a guarantee. Having a five-year deal in place might be enough to get sponsors to come on board, or make them willing to hear a pitch.

Here's a closer look (click on the picture in the bottom tweet):

First off, brilliant execution on balancing out the EE primary with continued use of elk imagery. The use of the elk horn football logo is such a smart choice, and a very cool logo. I love how how they used it on those sleeve stripes where many of us just assumed they would duplicate the EE there, as they've done historically. My only qualm is whether the use of the elk-horn football on the pants is a bit too much. Hard to tell from these pictures.

Did you expect them to put together a strategy that's predicated on the likelihood of the league not lasting that long?

I hope that's true. The excitement here in St. Louis for that team was surprising and incredible. I bought tickets to bring my boys to their next home game until the pandemic killed it.

Which trend are you speaking of? The 1970s sansabelt polyester pullover era or the more recent modern embrace/reintroduction of powder blue? At this point, because the Cardinals are one of the teams that switched to powder blue road uniforms so effectively in the '70s, I don't feel that the color is at all misplaced within their brand. Now, I might have thought differently when it was introduced in the '70s, but as of today it feels natural.

Sure it’s a trend, in so much as teams embracing novelty uniforms is a trend. The trend doesn’t need to be the look; it can be the act of creating them at all.

I mean, this is kind of how the cycle begins, right? A team switches to a wholly new visual brand identity to chase trends, then after 5 to 10 years misses the old look and ends up changing back. Call it Teal Pistons Syndrome. I realize the Heat have done nothing to suggest they would ditch their core brand (thankfully), and that this is merely a thought exercise, but you can sort of see the forces at play that would cause a brand to make such a move. The list of teams that have gone through this exercise is practically infamous. The Pistons, Buffalo Sabres, Atlanta Hawks, Milwaukee Bucks, Phoenix Coyotes, Milwaukee Brewers, San Diego Padres. It's like these brands go through their own freshman year of college where they take a sojourn to find themselves and suddenly come home with long hair and tattoos. Not to say that no change is good. In fact, these teams' odd choices and bad decisions sort of add to the colorful palette of sports. But there are sometimes when you just have to think, this could all have been avoided.

I feel like many people are coming to these conclusions because the alternative to the core brand is something much livelier than the original. It's a lot easier to label the Heat brand as mid-level appealing when the alternative is a hot-pink novelty look meant to emulate a 1980s TV show. It's like looking at two Mustangs side by side -- one is black, the other is neon green. Your first instinct might suggest you love the neon green because it's fresh, new and will get a lot of likes on Tik-Tok without realizing that you actually have to drive the thing and, after about six months, you'll get tired of it and wish you'd picked the black all along.