It's not easy being green.

[griffin128]

Last night I was laying in bed thinking about sports uniforms (it was snowing in New York) and I realized that green is so underused in all professional sports.

Red, Blue, Black all get used to death but Green? I mean it's not Orange, or Yellow or Pink.Why do designers shy away from it. Of all the 121 professional teams in sports only 8 use green as a primary color. Why?

Mlb - Oakland A's

Nfl - Philadelphia Eagles

Green Bay Packers

New York Jets

Nba - Seattle Sonics

Boston Celtics

Nhl - Dallas Stars

Minnesota Wild

Even as a secondary color only the Milwaukee Bucks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays attempt to use it.

In fact while some teams have switched from Blue to Red to Black, no one even attempts Green and eventually gives up. Weird.

[The Thrill]

I hear ya, brotha.  Hell, back in the day, the Bucks had more than 1 (!) shade of green on their road unis.  It looked awesome with the deer-twirling-a-basketball logo.

Now they sport...purple.  FREAKING PURPLE.  IN WISCONSIN.  That's just wrong...waaaayyyy too Vikings-esque.  P'tooey!

Of course, the rarity of green all around in sports makes the Packers' home unis that much more special.  Now only if they'd go back to the damn pre-'97 double striping on the sleeves like Lombardi had it...*grumble*

[slapshot]

Teal (blue-green) seemed to replace Green as the trendy color. If you add teal to this mix, you have a lot more teams:

MLB: Florida Marlins

Arizona Diamondbacks

Seattle Mariners

NFL: Jacksonville Jaguars

Miami Dolphins (a bit of a stretch, but blue-green)

NHL: San Jose Sharks

Anaheim Mighty Ducks

NBA: Memphis Grizzlies

New Orleans Hornets

In general, most shades of blue became navy blue. Blues, reds and black are more "aggressive" colors than green, and unless you have a nautical or environmental-related logo, green won't fit. So when the blue got darker, the green got a little lighter and moved towards blue in the spectrum.

It's only been in the last few years that there has been a wider range of blue in sports now...Carolina panthers, Denver Nuggets, Washington Wizards to name a few.

[griffin128]

Well I'd have to say that Teal/Turquoise/Aqua are their own category at this point. And I realize that marketing departments would argue that Red or Black is more agressive but thats a new idea. Even in the past no one was using green, it's just strange. A dark green does'nt seem less manly than a dark blue.

[Primal]

Green is mainly paired with white or gold, and just doesn't (for my money) contrast as well without being a particularly dark green.

[winters in buffalo]

I would like to see more green. I'm amazed at how underused it really is. Green, as basic as it is, would help a team stand out in a crowd of blues.

I really like to see more orange too. Not fruity Bucco orange, a good darker orange.

Yeah, more green & more orange, but never, never, never, never, EVER together.

[sc49erfan15]

Yes! More orange!  

[Ez Street]

I really like to see more orange too. Not fruity Bucco orange, a good darker orange.

HEY, who you callin fruity. Sayin something like that will get your throat slashed by bucco bruce.  

[griffin128]

Green is mainly paired with white or gold, and just doesn't (for my money) contrast as well without being a particularly dark green.

I don't think it has to be though. Tampa Bay would look great if they make the Hunter their Primary and Black the secondary. I think Green and Navy, Green and Red, Green and Gray, even Green and Brown or Beige would be really sweet.

[ColeJ]

thank god for this post

it feels good to read something PRO-GREEN on this forum, because the only time i ever seem to read anything about a team wearing green on here, it's people saying that the Dallas Stars need to be blue and silver, like the evil evil cowboys.

green and gold make a great color scheme, and making the stars wear anything else would be a crime

and just for the record, saying that teal is a shade of green is like saying that purple is a shade of red... sure, it's 1/2 of the color, but the other 1/2 of it is blue teal is not green, and we DO need more green teams.

before minnesota came back to the NHL, the stars were the only team to wear green as their primary color. i enjoyed that era... made me feel unique

[slapshot]

Yeah, more green & more orange, but never, never, never, never, EVER together.

So I guess you're not a fan of Miami or Florida A & M?

Even though both purple and teal are mixes of other colors, I owuld say teal is a lot closer to green is than purple is to red. If you were to make the Vikings or the Rockies red instead of purple, there would be a huge difference, but replace teal with green in the Jaguars or the Sharks and the change would not be as drastic.

[NJTank]

The Hurricanes Green uniforms are brutal.

However, the Orange uniforms are not that bad. It would depend how the stripes or coloring is done but green and and orange can work, but if its done wrong its an eye sore.

[griffin128]

Even though both purple and teal are mixes of other colors, I owuld say teal is a lot closer to green is than purple is to red.

I would have to agree with Cole on this one. It's probably closer to saying well Orange and Red are pretty much the same, because they're not. thats why we have two separate names for them. And in all reality Hornets Teal, or Sharks Aqua is no where near Celtics Green. If the Packers switched to Marlins Teal you don't think that would be drastic?! Green is like Rodney Dangerfield, no respect.

[winters in buffalo]

I really like to see more orange too. Not fruity Bucco orange, a good darker orange.

HEY, who you callin fruity. Sayin something like that will get your throat slashed by bucco bruce.

I meant food fruity, not lifestyle fruity.

And jp, I can't think of anything that looks worse than orange & green!

[the_cynic]

I've always loved the color of green in pro sporting team logos/uniforms. The Boston Celtics logo will always and forever be the best green logo though!

[pagan696]

green has always been bad luck in auto racing.  there's an old story behind it.  some drivers have gone on and done well in green, Waltrip in Gatorade 88, B. Labonte in Interstate Batteries 18 (both Cup champions).

[Discrim]

ah, green...while i've said i like the bucks' current scheme they should be in green.  and the D-Rays, they need to lighten one of their colors so you can actually tell they wear black, green and blue.  cus right now they're "um, uhh and erm." ::

another reason to wish for the Whalers to come back

[logos are cool]

I like Green, there should be more of it in sports. However sports teams usually work off of what thier marketing departments says. According to research the most popular selling colors are black, blue and red. So, in the end they  sacrifice product deferrentiation for sales. Thats why every team has seemed to add black to thier color scheme. My own opinion is that i'd rather see some differentiaion than everyone in the same unis.

With regards to Orange being a good color, and seeing a dark Orange out there, The nba's Charlotte Bobcats will sport dark orange as thier primary color next year. It should be nice.

[yh]

green has always been bad luck in auto racing. there's an old story behind it. some drivers have gone on and done well in green, Waltrip in Gatorade 88, B. Labonte in Interstate Batteries 18 (both Cup champions).

There's two stories on the whole Darrell Waltrip Gatorade car story.  One is that he did it on purpose to try to do away with the superstition, being the brat maverick that he was at the time.  The second is that he did not want a green car and thus compromised.  The car was actually white with three massive green stripes running up the hood, roof and rear deck and then a huge green stripe on the sides.  In either event, his success with green certainly opened the door for a few other green paint schemes - the #18 Interstates Batteries car that won the Daytona 500 for Dale Jarrett and a Cup for Bobby Labonte is probably the most consistent success a green car has had.  Of course there's also the #46 First Union car that Wally Dallenbach drove into obscurity in the mid to late 90's too, so perhaps all in all it's a wash in NASCAR.

[pagan696]

Of course there's also the #46 First Union car that Wally Dallenbach drove into obscurity in the mid to late 90's too, so perhaps all in all it's a wash in NASCAR.

don't forget Chad Little in the John Deere 97, ugh!