IceCap

Not my favorite, but still good for what it is. I'm still not sure but I think the first year they did it that it was more green blue ..? its good in its own right because the practically invented a color. but I would have used the old blue in the pin stripe and not lime/dayglo. I really dont see the point of the lime green jersey? its a bad reminder of the 1980s haha Maybe because two blues and lime green look better then three blues? the difference in shade is so great, I think it would work and the pin stripe isnt that noticable to make it a bad contrast. Look at Buffalo as example. they use 2 or 3 blues and 2 more colors added while still mimicing an old school design Using Buffalo as an example of how do design a uniform is a very bad idea. The Bills have the prototypical bad uniform. For the record they use two blues and nickel, and it looks terrible. The most needlessly crammed colour scheme in the NFL.

Not my favorite, but still good for what it is. I'm still not sure but I think the first year they did it that it was more green blue ..? its good in its own right because the practically invented a color. but I would have used the old blue in the pin stripe and not lime/dayglo. I really dont see the point of the lime green jersey? its a bad reminder of the 1980s haha Maybe because two blues and lime green look better then three blues?

That's not a monopoly though. A monopoly would be if Reebok were the only jersey manufacturer in town, having forced out its rivals with monopolistic tactics, thus forcing the NFL to give them the licence. Or if EA were the only video game developer around, having built up a monopoly for itself, forcing the league to go to them. This, simply put, is not the case. Reebok and EA do exist in competitive business environments. The NFL has decided that their performance in their respective markets is good enough to warrant the licences to their products. That's business, not a monopoly. There are other video game developers out there. There are other jersey manufacturers out there. If they offered a quality of product on par with Rebook or EA, or if they had made a better case for themselves to the NFL and in the marketplace, then they could have gotten the NFL licence rather then Reebok or EA. Monopoly is a term that tends to get thrown around a lot in these discussions. Simply put, EA and Reebok do not have monopolies. At the end of the day it's the NFL's intellectual property. They can do whatever they want with it. If they want to give one company an exclusive licence in one field or another that's completely within their rights as the holder of that IP. It's not a monopoly. Now if Reebok, DirectTV, or EA prove to be so incompetent that consumers stop buying their goods and services then the NFL will look elsewhere. There are other companies out there in the fields of cable/satellite television, video game development, and jersey manufacturing. If they keep up the quality of their goods and services, and if the holders of the NFL licences falter like so many are claiming they are for long enough, then we could see a shift. Now I'll tell you why it makes sense for the NFL to give one manufacture the licence for team merchandise. Remember when we had multiple companies making NFL jerseys? Now each company had its own list of NFL teams that it made on-field jerseys for, but each company could make replicas of teams that they didn't have the licence to. Nike, for example, could make and sell replicas of a team they didn't work with. What we got was a market flooded by official replicas from three or four different companies, and they all varied in design, even among the same teams. A Reebok Broncos replica would look different from one made by Puma, and the one made by Nike would look different from both of them. This runs the risk of diluting the visual identities of the league's teams. By choosing one manufacturer to hold the licence for all teams the NFL sidesteps this problem. An interesting alternative to this, however, is if we consider the NFL a collection of 32 independent pro football organizations that just band together under one banner for the purposes of forming a competitive circuit. If we take this approach, which I feel does holds a level of legitimacy, then it can be argued that the league has no right to force teams under one licence. If that's the case, and we return to multiple manufacturers, then I would want to see tighter control over what we saw in the past. That is to say that manufacturers cannot make merchandise for teams that they're not associated with. That way everyone wins, I think. A level of competition is reintroduced to the official NFL licence on team merchandise while the problems brought on by multiple versions of the same jersey in the marketplace are avoided. As for the video games? What can I say? I've always been an EA Sports/Madden fan, even before they got the licence. To me they always produced the best football game around so it made sense to me that the NFL would choose them when they wanted to only have one official NFL game series. Unlike the jersey position I see no reason why the NFL felt it only needed on video game franchise, but at the end of the day it's there licence, and they can do what they want with it. EA doesn't have a monopoly, they have the exclusive rights to one video game series. Not the same thing. Really, I don't see much lost there. Did anyone play Backbreaker (the new football game)? What a letdown. An outstanding point. Nothing like shelling out big bucks for a jersey only to wear it one season before that player slides out the revolving door that is the NFL in free agency. I'll have to disagree here. In hockey and baseball you can just buy the jerseys blank. No problem. In basketball and football, well that's the risk you run. You know full well that the player who's jersey your buying may not play for the team next season. Yet you choose to take the risk when you buy the jersey. Furthermore this problem can be sidestepped. Buy a jersey of a player who stands a high chance of staying around for a while. Buy a jersey of a high profile player from a recent championship run so that even if they leave your jersey still has meaning as a fan. Or buy a throwback/vintage jersey that often feature great players from the team's past. No problem there. As a Saints fan you're probably safe with a Drew Brees jersey, for example. The whole "well the player may not be around much longer" problem is easily sidestepped.

Exactly. Maybe it's the broad use of the term, but I really take no issue with the NFL having a monopoly on NFL merchandise.

Hey I have one of those! Cool! Not only is it NOT an act of justifiable defiance, it doesn't even BELONG in the same discussion as the founding of the United States. On one hand you have a group of people who believed their states were being taxed unfairly and so they decided to form a new nation based on the principals of the Enlightenment. On the other hand we have a group of people who making (often) shoddy replicas of sports jerseys to sell at prices below what the official ones sell for. They're profiting off of the copyrights of these leagues and teams and off of the ignorance of the consumer. To even suggest that someone making/selling illegal counterfeits is acting in the same spirit as the American founding fathers is downright insulting to the founding fathers' legacy. Counterfeiting in no way supports a "greater good." They're crooks making illegal copies off of other people's legal copyrights and selling them to consumers who, to be honest, are unaware that they may be buying a fake. These are not selfless icons of morality standing up to the big bad sports leagues and the manufacturers. They're scumbags who profit off of other people's intellectual property and the ignorance of the consumer. We're not talking about the Nuremberg Laws or Jim Crow Laws here pal. The law in this case is a league/team's right to own the exclusive rights over its own intellectual property. Is that law wrong? If not, then there's no debate here. The counterfeiters are both morally and legally in the wrong. This is the cheapest, by far, argument ever thrown around in this debate. Perhaps you missed this life lesson growing up, but two wrongs do not make a right. Someone else's violation of the law does not give you a free pass to break another law. That seems pretty straight forward, but I guess it would slip by someone who has the nerve to compare counterfeiters of NFL jerseys to America's founding fathers. Furthermore distinctions need to be made, and your "everyone violates the law" argument is so paper thin and broad that it really doesn't hold up in this argument when those distinctions are made. For the record, yes I have gotten a few tickets, for a few different traffic offences. You know what I did? I paid them. I broke the law, I was punished accordingly, and I paid my punishment. As in I got caught breaking the law and I paid the proper consequences. What consequences have you (a general you to anyone who's bought, sold, or manufactured a counterfeit jersey) paid for your breaking of the law? Quoted for truth. The monopoly on rights is exactly why the prices are so high. When true competition is allowed prices go down and quality goes up. A monopoly means that the major sports leagues can put as high of a price as they want on the jerseys so long as people still buy them. They take such issue with 'counterfeits' because they really put a stitch in the side of their monopoly. Sure they can say, make similar products with the same colors, people will buy them, but the fact of the matter is authentic jerseys are what the consumer wants. Nobody wants a k-mart shiny t-shirt in place of an authentic jersey. They do not hold a monopoly on team apparel, they hold a monopoly on authentic jerseys, and they're making a killing. I'm going to have to disagree. You're argument is essentially "the *insert league here* has a monopoly over the production and sale of goods that use the *insert league here*'s various intellectual properties." Of course they do. That's just not them. That applies to everyone. Everyone has a "monopoly" over their own intellectual property. That's how copyrights work.

I'm not sure I equate the loft Enlightenment-inspired ideals of America's Founding Fathers with the Chinese counterfeiter's desire to make a quick buck on other peoples' trademarks and fan ignorance.

Playing devil's advocate, what law is being broken by customers who buy fake jerseys? The act of producing and selling counterfeits is the illegal act here.

I would argue that there aren't any "major" hockey, baseball, or basketball leagues outside of the NHL, MLB, and NBA. Really. Do you honestly think the champs of the KHL, European leagues, or Japanese and Korean leagues would stand a chance in a true championship series against the NHL, NBA, or MLB champs? Sure a Russian all-star team could beat the Blackhawks, but that's a pretty piss poor comparison. I real question is "could the KHL champs beat the Blackhawks?" and that's a pretty obvious "no." I think people are confused here. It's not a question of North America vs the world. It's a question of which league has the best assemblage of players. The World Series champs in MLB aren't just made up of American and Canadian players. They'll probably feature some of the best players Japan, South America, and maybe Korea have to offer as well. So if the MLB champs play the champs of the Japanese league they're not going up against a team of Japanese all-stars. They're going up against the best club team Japan has to offer, and they themselves would be playing with some of the best Japanese players out there. Simply put, they'd curb stomp them.

Do you read what other people are saying or do you just scan for key phrases and guesstimate the rest? The CFL, the KHL, the European basketball leagues, the Japanese and Korean baseball leagues, are obviously bush league when compared to the NFL, NHL, NBA, and MLB. The North American leagues are, without a doubt, the highest level of competition for their respective sports. Thus the champions of these leagues calling themselves World Champions is appropriate. Trying to argue that they aren't, that the teams in these other leagues actually have a chance to rival the NHL/NFL/NBA/MLB champs, is naive at best and argumentative at worst.

1) Agreed. 2) I make an exception if the customization is something that would CLEARLY never make it on the field/floor/ice (like an obvious nickname or a 3-digit number). I used to know a guy called Ugly that was known for wearing his "UGLY 00" Packers jersey to the club (back in 2002 when you could still rock jerseys at the club). To me, that's different from the 5'9, 250 lb. guy with his own (real) name who insists on a receivers number on top of everything else. That said... I'm personally more than content with a team-logo hoodie. Fair enough. Yeah, those are fine, in and in many cases, pretty funny. D'oh! Was in a hockey mindset. Obviously player name/number jerseys are ok for football and basketball.

Except counterfeiters are not responding to the demand via legal means. They're 1) infringing on copyrights and 2) in most cases trying to pass their fakes off as the real thing, thus deceiving the costumers. One can be "pro-free market" and still see the legal and moral problems with counterfeit jerseys. Thanks for the insight Mr. Blackwell. Wear what you want, but he's got a point. Everytime I see a grown-a$$ man in a jersey (especially a customized one) I just think he's some big kid who is imagining that he's actually on the team by putting on the jersey, like he's fulfilling some childhood fantasy. It's all a big game of pretend. If you're actually at the game, maybe you get a pass, but it's still kind of corny for adults to wear the jerseys of other adults. Ice_Cap's guide to wearing sports jerseys.... 1) Only acceptable when at a game or watching a game, or if you're out the day/night of a game. You just look silly wearing a jersey when you're out grocery shopping. Just my opinion, but you do. 2) Wearing a jersey with your own name/number is only acceptable if you're age 10 or younger. 3) Blank jerseys are preferred over jerseys with the name/number of a player, but that latter is still acceptable.

Please identify the club baseball and basketball teams that could take a 7 game series from the MLB and NBA champions, or the club American football team that could win a game against the Super Bowl champions. You can't, can you? /Just think of them as the World Club champions in their respective sports. What a dumb reply. The point is they aren't "World Champions" at all, just of their respective league. What a dumb reply. It's obvious that the NBA, NFL, and MLB are the top tiers of their respective sport, world wide. Yeah, there are some decent baseball teams in Japan and Korea, and some decent basketball teams in the European league, but realistically the champions of those leagues wouldn't stand a chance against the champions of the NBA and MLB in a true seven game championship series. The NFL? There aren't even American football teams in other countries that come close to NFL practice squads. The only league that might offer a challenge is the CFL, and technically that's a different game then what the NFL plays. So really, there's no issue with the NBA, MLB, and NFL champions calling themselves the World Champions. They really are the best in the world at their sport. The only major North American league that MIGHT have serious competition is the NHL, with the KHL being their biggest rivals (and even that's very VERY iffy). As far as I know no NHL championship team has refereed to itself as the "World Champion" in quite some time. They just use Stanley Cup Champions. Though to be perfectly honest even the KHL champs would have a hard time taking down the Stanley Cup champs so I wouldn't object if the Stanley Cup champions started to refer to themselves as the World Champions again.

While I can appreciate the attachment to a genuine Floridan colour scheme I feel that the creamsicles aren't bold enough to work as a NFL colour scheme. The Miami Dolphins, Florida Panthers, Florida Marlins, Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Miami Heat all had or have Floridian colour schemes that are also bold enough to work in the realm of North American pro sports. The orange and coral/pink/red/whatever they called it just doesn't do it for me. Though the Heat colour scheme, I think, could work for an updated Bucco Bruce look. Come up with a better representation of Bucco Bruce and use the Heat's colours. That could work. As for the pirate theme, they went overboard with the stadium, but at least the uniforms, in my opinion, manage it well.

Do uniforms effect the on-field results? No, not really. To claim that uniforms are completely separate from the eras they helped define, however, is a very naive assumption. Those Bucs uniforms represented an era in which, for the most part, they were the butt to every joke concerning the NFL. These are the uniforms that represent the year in which they became the only team in modern NFL history to go winless in a season. You can't really divorce a uniform from the era it helped define. It doesn't work. Aesthetically, it's a mess. I'm sorry, but that logo just sucks. Pase gay jokes aside, it's a winking pirate. He's not threatening, he's not intimidating. Given that the name relates to pirates, there's so much potential for imagery, and Bucco Bruce falls up short in that department. The colours themselves look washed out. There's not enough contrast. It's just not a bold enough look to work, in my opinion. It's the perfect example of why classic looks aren't always the best. This is one of those older uniforms that I think is best left in the past. The new uniforms, in addition to being associated with a Super Bowl, are unique in the sense that they use a colour seen no where else in pro sports. They also take full advantage of pirate imagery without being consumed by it (cartoony numbers were avoided). The current set looks modern yet not like something that will seem dated down the line, while at the same time seeming classic, but not boring. It's a fantastic look that's associated with the franchise's best years. If it were up to me the Bucs would only wear the orange throwback look when they're honouring past players or teams.

I don't get the love either. They're representative of failure.

I guess this is an unpopular opinion judging from the last few posts. I like the new Sharks logo. The new uniforms themselves I can take or leave, but the logo's a huge improvement over the original.

The colour, in person, had a shiny golden feel to it on the 2002-2007 sweaters. Since the change to the Edge sweaters, however, it's lost that shininess and now it's just flat. It comes across as khaki more so then gold now, in my opinion.

Khaki.

They are, however, a KFKS team.

I don't agree with you about purple in sports (I think it's been used to great affect), but I do agree that the purple and gold Kings sets were overrated.

I really like the white outlines and stripes on the Yankees' road jerseys. There's a fine line between something looking "classic" and something looking "old." The white, I think, helps keep the road look classic and not old.

I really don't care what the Angels do regarding their name at this stage. Just pick one. Either they're the Los Angeles Angels or the Anaheim Angels. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim is just terrible. I would prefer the Los Angeles Angels at this point to be honest. Agreed. Much better then the skating Disney advertisement look.

Enjoy it while it lasts

I suppose that makes me graycist, then. /bad puns Grey facemasks can work, but only in certain situations.... If the team's colourscheme includes grey or silver, or if they've never worn anything else. Once a team goes with coloured masks, however, going back to grey just seems artificial.

Agreed.