USFL 2023 - Uniforms and Logos

[tBBP]

5 hours ago, Dilbert said:

 

 

 

There's that good ol' yinzer tribalism I've learned to expect from my second hometown! 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, fortunat1 said:

I agree with this for the most part. I agree that having Pittsburgh switch to black and yellow is moving backwards when they want to create a league that feeds off nostalgia. It may look better, but defeats the purpose of creating that retro image. Even then I'm fine with the Showboats switching colors, as the league was oversaturated with red teams.

 

Pittsburgh has built a reputation of doing that over the years...and here I thought they were finally turning a corner on all that and WELP....

 

2 hours ago, heavybass said:

WHY does Pittsburgh believe Black and Gold is the way to go, the only thing it deserves to go is in the bin.

 

See above re: yinzer tribalism.

[Sodboy13]

3 hours ago, raysox said:

I feel like i'm in the minority....

but if you're going to pretend to throw back to a league with branding, either go all in or not at all. None of this half ass stuff. The Pittsburgh Maulers were a purple and orange team! Same story with Memphis! You made your bed to tribute the USFL and now you're changing it. It would've been better off just doing a whole new identity. 

 

Putting the Maulers in black and gold makes it look like they're some unofficial nickname for the Steelers, sold on T-shirts by some second-tier local Barstool wannabe. It simply doesn't look like a real team now, and it serves as a visual cue that they're trying to ride the coattails of the established local favorite, much like the old and failed Pittsburgh Power of the Arena League.

 

And to do all this to bolster your local bona fides or whatever while playing your home games in Canton, which is closer to Cleveland than Pittsburgh in both distance and identity, is absurd. If you're messing with the legacy branding now, you could just rename them the "Ohio Maulers" or something, keep the colors, and say you own purple while pointing to the orange as a connection to the state's two other pro teams.

 

As @raysox points out, this is attempting to have it both ways and succeeding at neither. Brian Woods pigeonholed the league at the outset by leaning hard into its legacy identity, to the point of ongoing legal action, and now he's out changing stuff because suddenly the legacy identity isn't important to him for whatever reason. Why change the Showboats' colors if they were replacing a red-silver-black team anyway? Whatever, I guess, Fox Sports was too dumb to recognize what it was putting its money into, and too committed now to get out.

 

 

[GDAWG]

24 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

 

Putting the Maulers in black and gold makes it look like they're some unofficial nickname for the Steelers, sold on T-shirts by some second-tier local Barstool wannabe. It simply doesn't look like a real team now, and it serves as a visual cue that they're trying to ride the coattails of the established local favorite, much like the old and failed Pittsburgh Power of the Arena League.

 

And to do all this to bolster your local bona fides or whatever while playing your home games in Canton, which is closer to Cleveland than Pittsburgh in both distance and identity, is absurd. If you're messing with the legacy branding now, you could just rename them the "Ohio Maulers" or something, keep the colors, and say you own purple while pointing to the orange as a connection to the state's two other pro teams.

 

As @raysox points out, this is attempting to have it both ways and succeeding at neither. Brian Woods pigeonholed the league at the outset by leaning hard into its legacy identity, to the point of ongoing legal action, and now he's out changing stuff because suddenly the legacy identity isn't important to him for whatever reason. Why change the Showboats' colors if they were replacing a red-silver-black team anyway? Whatever, I guess, Fox Sports was too dumb to recognize what it was putting its money into, and too committed now to get out.

 

 

 

Brian Woods is no longer a part of the USFL.  He resigned due to family reasons.

[DCarp1231]

This is the type of :censored: that makes me wish the Wizards or Capitals stuck with black-blue-gold.

[walkerws]

1 hour ago, WideRight said:

Several thoughts:

 

1. As a classic USFL diehard I am against changing team colors at all.  It's fine to modernize the logos and for the most part the new USFL has done a good job of it, but I am watching out of love for the real USFL and the more they deviate from that the less interesting I find it.   That and the new Memphis logo is not as cool as the original.

 

2.  I cannot believe they are going with a black helmet, single yellow stripe, and grey facemask for the Maulers.  How will the Steelers not sue or cease & desist them for such a blatant ripoff.  If you are going to go black and gold, at least mix it up and use a metallic gold, or even a yellow helmet to not look like a cheap imitation of the Steelers. 

 

3. There was no need to change from Red & Silver for Memphis because Memphis was replacing the Red & Silver Bandits.  You end up with the same number of red teams as last year.  So now you have 1 less red team but after converting Pittsburgh you have added another black helmet team, so again less color variation. 

 

4. None of it really matters until all 8 teams (hopefully 12 next year) are playing in their home cities.  Call them Pittsburgh if you want, but they are playing in Canton, OH. 

A) I think they should have gone with a yellow lid. B] I don't think the Steelers will care unless they do a logo on just one side. They should have done a patterned stripe maybe so that it resembled steel. 

[heavybass]

Yinzer tribalism should be treated like concrete cancer.... removed at all costs.

[GDAWG]

 

[leopard88]

9 hours ago, GDAWG said:

 

 

That looks an awful lot like a Steelers throwback helmet . . . which is a good thing.

 

I dare them to only have the logo on the right side of the helmet.

[MJWalker45]

9 hours ago, GDAWG said:

 

What's with the bumper plate, that's above the bumper? Has no one on that team set up a helmet before? 

[Sec19Row53]

33 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

What's with the bumper plate, that's above the bumper? Has no one on that team set up a helmet before? 

Riddell apparently paying good money for that space 

[MJWalker45]

7 minutes ago, Sec19Row53 said:

Riddell apparently paying good money for that space 

I wouldn't be surprised if that was actually what happened here. Why not just stick a sponsor patch on the helmets? I know Dallas did that with the XFL, and Bud Light Seltzer on the helmets, why not do that for the whole league? I'd prefer they not do it but if they need the money, put it there instead of the jerseys. 

[Cruhawk7975]

Think they're laying the groundwork to try to boost the fanbase for this/future seasons here. Based on recent events: 

 

• Hired a new head coach with direct ties to the Steelers
• Changed colors to be more in-line with the rest of the city teams (say what you will, but Pittsburgh loves their colors) 
• Announced this morning the Maulers (and the Generals) will play at a hub site in Canton, OH at the Hall of Fame stadium (where the championship game was last year - which they actually sold out despite none of the teams being nearby) - which FWIW is within a 2 hour drive of Pittsburgh 

This all seems to align to prime the team to fully move into Pittsburgh for the 2024 season. Seems like Fox is bullish on having a team there. 

[SSmith48]

I get Pittsburgh imagery and all that... but purple/gray/orange is such a unique color combo. And, FWIW, I think the Maulers used it pretty nicely last year. A shame they moved on from it so quickly, especially since the USFL just got another dark color/yellow team in the Showboats.

[PERRIN]

3 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

I wouldn't be surprised if that was actually what happened here. Why not just stick a sponsor patch on the helmets? I know Dallas did that with the XFL, and Bud Light Seltzer on the helmets, why not do that for the whole league? I'd prefer they not do it but if they need the money, put it there instead of the jerseys. 

Definitely agree that if sponsors are going to be slapped onto football uniforms in the future, I'd much prefer it on the helmet than on the jersey. That placement is about as unintrusive as you can get. Still hope to never see ads in the NFL (or any other football league, for that matter), but if that ends up being the case, I could live with them on the backs of helmets.

 

Also, that helmet is a thing of beauty. Such a shame the newest iteration of the XFL messed with it.

[Cruhawk7975]

6 minutes ago, SSmith48 said:

I get Pittsburgh imagery and all that... but purple/gray/orange is such a unique color combo. And, FWIW, I think the Maulers used it pretty nicely last year. A shame they moved on from it so quickly, especially since the USFL just got another dark color/yellow team in the Showboats.

I don't disagree (though I think the O.G. Maulers looked more like the Chicago Bears than this current version), but at least the colors are freed up for a future original expansion /rebrand. 

 

also someone colorswapped the maulers jerseys on a pic from the USFL official discord, and the results actually look pretty sharp IMO: 

 

[GDAWG]

25 minutes ago, Cruhawk7975 said:

I don't disagree (though I think the O.G. Maulers looked more like the Chicago Bears than this current version), but at least the colors are freed up for a future original expansion /rebrand. 

 

also someone colorswapped the maulers jerseys on a pic from the USFL official discord, and the results actually look pretty sharp IMO: 

 

 

If they go with that look, it would make them different than the Steelers, which would be a good thing.  

[walkerws]

23 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

I wouldn't be surprised if that was actually what happened here. Why not just stick a sponsor patch on the helmets? I know Dallas did that with the XFL, and Bud Light Seltzer on the helmets, why not do that for the whole league? I'd prefer they not do it but if they need the money, put it there instead of the jerseys. 

I think this is exactly what minor league teams should do. No reason to be advertising phobic if it keeps these league afloat.  It's also an opportunity for local sponsors and their namesake cities to get a cheaper ad for a "pro" team. 

[maz]

I dunno. I agree it'd be cool to see a Pittsburgh team with different colors (just look at my fantasy football team I've had on here forever), and I actually really liked the purple and orange. But, and you can call it what you want, it is also cool to have all the teams match the official city colors (which go all the way back to the 1700's). Plus it still tends to stand out a bit more in a world full of red and blue teams.

 

The real challenge, however, is not looking like the Steelers (without going all black like the short-lived Pittsburgh Power did - being a summer league and all).

 

EDIT: Come to think of it, purple and orange doesn't really fit the theme of a team called the "Maulers" whose mascot is a construction dude wielding a giant hammer. So take that for what it's worth.

[Silver_Star]

On 1/24/2023 at 12:33 PM, heavybass said:

WHY does Pittsburgh believe Black and Gold is the way to go, the only thing it deserves to go is in the bin.

Let the yinzers be yinzers. They will cry to high hell.

[shstpt1]

9 hours ago, maz said:

I dunno. I agree it'd be cool to see a Pittsburgh team with different colors (just look at my fantasy football team I've had on here forever), and I actually really liked the purple and orange. But, and you can call it what you want, it is also cool to have all the teams match the official city colors (which go all the way back to the 1700's). Plus it still tends to stand out a bit more in a world full of red and blue teams.

 

The real challenge, however, is not looking like the Steelers (without going all black like the short-lived Pittsburgh Power did - being a summer league and all).

 

EDIT: Come to think of it, purple and orange doesn't really fit the theme of a team called the "Maulers" whose mascot is a construction dude wielding a giant hammer. So take that for what it's worth.

Could always use a Gold jersey like the Gotham Knights in The Dark Knight, filmed in Heinz Field. That was a good balance of the colors, and could work