USFL 2023 - Uniforms and Logos

[Ark]

6 hours ago, ralphz said:

Whichever, it seems they're trying as hard as they can to mimic the Steelers. 

 

Now they just need to play in Pittsburgh 

[walkerws]

8 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

I understand the Showboats moving away from red in a league in which so many teams use red.  But there was no reason to change the logo.  Just recolour the classic logo and helmet.  Here are my crude attempts to show that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I get the nostalgia of it, but it wasn’t a good logo. 

[MJWalker45]

USFL commercial on WWE , just showed off either Pittsburgh or Memphis with a yellow jersey and the sleeves had the old Titans sleeve design, but not the shoulders/ yoke. Lots of smoke and no logos on the helmet or uniform.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, walkerws said:

9 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

I understand the Showboats moving away from red in a league in which so many teams use red.  But there was no reason to change the logo.  Just recolour the classic logo and helmet.  

I get the nostalgia of it, but it wasn’t a good logo

 

I strongly disagree. The old logo beautifully abstracted the look of a riverboat wheel. It definitely deserved to be retained, not to be replaced by a logo appropriate for a team called the Speedboats.

[gosioux76]

10 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

I strongly disagree. The old logo beautifully abstracted the look of a riverboat wheel. It definitely deserved to be retained, not to be replaced by a logo appropriate for a team called the Speedboats.

 

I'm with you. It's at least worth taking a shot at modernizing. 

 

In the hierarchy of reasons to choose a logo, using one with historical relevance should rank above one that doesn't make sense. And trying to suggest a riverboat casino is some fast-moving object doesn't make sense.  

 

If anything, a clever designer could build a logo package that uses iconography for both steamboats and gambling. The current logo could just as easily be a roulette wheel or a card table, as well as the paddle wheel of the boat. Secondaries could be aces or dice or a full roulette wheel. Maybe put a wave motif on the base of the sleeves with a secondary logo. 

 

I'm just spitballing. But i'd like to know if the USFL commissioned designers to spend time thinking about this or if they just said, "we're moving Tampa to Memphis, so whip us up something fast."

[8BW14]

I’m so tired of matte football helmets, especially with gloss decals. It only works with black and it only works sometimes on black. Gloss or metallic are better 99% of the time

[maz]

Yeah, I was afraid they'd do the logo-on-one-side thing. We discussed the colors already, and like I said before, I was fine with it as long as they didn't look like the Steelers. Even if they did accidentally, I'd be fine with it. The one-sided decals is a deliberate "Steelers" thing, though, and that does bug me.

[Brian in Boston]

The name Memphis Showboats shouldn’t have been accompanied by a logo depicting a paddle wheel steamboat in the first place. Showboats and paddle wheel steamboats were two completely different types of vessels.
 

Showboats were actually barge-like ships with a performance space built atop them. These watercraft were then pushed by small, steam-powered, tugboat-like  tenders.

 

As for paddle wheelers, the steam engine needed to power said watercraft would have taken up enough internal space on the  vessels to make the placement of a  performance area  - including a stage and theater seating - impractical.

 

In my opinion, the original Memphis Showboats’ logo was middle tier amongst USFL marks… at best.

 

 

[GDAWG]

 

[GDAWG]

 

[MJWalker45]

On 3/21/2023 at 5:28 PM, GDAWG said:

 

 

10 hours ago, GDAWG said:

 

Originally I thought this was one of the teams, but apparently it was the USFL taking a shot at the XFL being the "Hollywood version" of football. Note the "Home of the Brahmas" in the back. 

[Survival79]

[Sykotyk]

The Baby Steelers. Thing is, being near them I would consider rooting for them, but not with the black and yellow. Purple and orange were a good look, but associated with a losing history.

 

But, as long as they'll never play in Pittsburgh it doesn't really matter.

[LogoFan]

50 minutes ago, Survival79 said:

 

wow.  That was very anti-climatic.  Just recolored last year's unis in yellow and black.  Why did it take so long?  Very lazy effort, even if the uniform itself looks better but now I really hate the Jr Steelers helmet.

I see they are using gray pants still...another reason why gray would've been a perfect addition to the helmet logo.  All they had to do was replace the white in the circle to gray. 

And I'll never understand why they went with such a heavy outline on the numbers.

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by LogoFan

[Brave-Bird 08]

The collars having sectional pieces mucks up which is overall a really nice design. 

[GDAWG]

A yellow helmet would have been fun.  

[ManillaToad]

Looks great

[raz]

Wow it was just a click-switch redesign. Purple becomes black, orange becomes gold, cash the check. 

[HOOVER]

Helmet is great.

Home jersey should have Grey yokes and Yellow-Gold sleeve bands.  Hard fail.

Number font is freaking horrific.  

Jersey collar is so bush league amateur that I won't watch the USFL just because if someone thinks these are okay, I don't trust that they think the rest of the product is okay.

Now that I saw the helmet in motion a little bit, the Yellow-Gold stripe is too thick.  Rule of thumb:  if the stripe is over 1" wide, it has to be a multi-stripe or multi-color stripe pattern.

[Durden]

I dig the uniforms and I expected it to be swap out of purple and orange for black and yellow.  Would have preferred either a yellow helmet or put some white stripes (are they called sandwich stripes?) on either side of the yellow on the helmet - only to be a bit different than the Steelers. I like the glossy helmet, especially when you contrast to the Steelers satin helmets.

 

I'm in agreement with Volt on adding some gray. I would have gone with gray pants rather than white. I absolutely hate white pants 99% of the time when it comes to football uniforms but gray pants would have matched the gray facemasks.