The Color Black in Sports and the Birth of BFBS

[Gothamite]

I understand that I take a stronger line, a more expansive definition, than some.  
 

For me it’s about merchandising, and few modern clubs can honestly say that merchandising doesn’t drive all their branding decisions. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

Black is not a taboo colour.  The Rockes, Bulls, and Raiders have black as a team colour; and that's perfectly legitimate.  Even the L.A. Kings switching to Raiders colours is just fine, as black becomes a team colour for them; likewise for the White Sox.  While I strongly dislike the uniforms the Nets adopted after their move, what I hate is the design (the script, the numbers, the lack of team name on the uniform), not the choice to use black as a team colour.  

 

None of this is what I think is meant by "black for black's sake", which denotes the gratuitous addition of black to an existing uniform design.  Examples include the Mets, Reds, Royals, Knicks, Calgary Stampeders.

And please note that this is an entirely separate issue from the question of teams doing things with the motivation of selling merchandise. While both the Kings' change in team colours and the Royals' addition of black to their uniforms are acts driven by the prospect of selling jerseys, only the latter constitutes a manifestation of the phenomenon of black for black's sake.

[MCM0313]

50 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Black is not a taboo colour.  The Rockes, Bulls, and Raiders have black as a team colour; and that's perfectly legitimate.  Even the L.A. Kings switching to Raiders colours is just fine, as black becomes a team colour for them; likewise for the White Sox.  While I strongly dislike the uniforms the Nets adopted after their move, what I hate is the design (the script, the numbers, the lack of team name on the uniform), not the choice to use black as a team colour.  

 

None of this is what I think is meant by "black for black's sake", which denotes the gratuitous addition of black to an existing uniform design.  Examples include the Mets, Reds, Royals, Knicks, Calgary Stampeders.

And please note that this is an entirely separate issue from the question of teams doing things with the motivation of selling merchandise. While both the Kings' change in team colours and the Royals' addition of black to their uniforms are acts driven by the prospect of selling jerseys, only the latter constitutes a manifestation of the phenomenon of black for black's sake.

This may be unpopular, but I think the Knicks' addition of a small amount of black in the 1990s enhanced their visual identity.

 

The Mets, though...yuck. And the Reds. And the Royals' addition of black was the single worst ever. I'm glad at least baseball has moved on from the fad.

[Discrim]

9 hours ago, MCM0313 said:

And the Royals' addition of black was the single worst ever.

I'll see your Royals and raise the 2003-08 Lions.  While the 2009-16 Lions set technically also qualifies for black for black's sake, they clearly put far less thought into the '03 change that wasn't "slap black everywhere you can without alienating everybody in Michigan."

...versus the '09 change, which was a much sharper look IMO.  I was actually sad to see this set go.