Why not green?

[B-Rich]

My question is why did "teal" or "turquoise" only become big in the '90s? It's not like the color was just "invented" then, or the technology to produce it wasn't available.

Just rattling off the top of my head here....

-- First, lets' all remember that the trail was blazed by the Miami Dolphins in the late 60s with their green-blue mixture, which they dubbed AQUA. The only team that had blue-green for years.

-- Of course the second team to use that shade was the (then)Charlotte Hornets, under which it was called teal. And teal leading a trend ties in to who it was used by-- a FASHION DESIGNER (North Carolina native Alexander Julian, to be exact). Had a fashion designer ever designed unis before? Not that I'm aware of, and in the yuppie -age 1980s, it added an immmediate note of cache'. The Hornets also added wide-style pinstripes and pleated pants (for a while). But Julian saw something bigger, he KNEW in 1987 as a designer that shades of blue-green were going to be big for the next few years. And the color teal WAS big-- not just in sports unis, but also in regular clothes, everyday geegaws and gadgets, and most notably, CARS (it seemed every 4th car on the road back in the early 90s was teal/aqua; I bought a Mazda MX3 and that was one of the most popular colors offered).

-- But why was it not popular before? Why was it only something used by the Dolphins in terms of sports unis? My simple explanation is that it doesn't fit the "basic Crayola" test. We all grew up with Crayolas. Some had the big 64 color box (with the sharpener that always clogged) and knew of such colors as Cornflower, Magenta and Burnt Sienna. Some had the 16 color box and got basic adjoining (and confusing) combos such as yellow-orange, orange-yellow, blue-green and green-blue. But ALL of us could relate to the basic 8 colors. Red, yellow, orange, blue, green, purple, brown and black. Throw in universally known silver and gold (shiny gold, as we geeks call it "old gold" or "vegas gold"), and you've got the basic palette you learned in kindergarten. EVERY team we knew could be reduced to these basics. Even slightly askew colors, as kids and even as most grown-ups, we could relate to-- the Lions Honolulu blue, or the Brave's navy blue, or Carolina blue are, after all, just a shade of BLUE. The Redskins' burgundy, Alabama's Crimson, even Mississippi State's maroon (another seldom used color) are usually seen as shades of RED. Texas' burnt orange is by name, at least, ORANGE. Lime green by name is still GREEN.

But aqua/teal/turquoise doesn't fit that mold so easily. Is it green, or is it blue? It's both, but neither. It's there in the spectrum, in the rainbow, but it doesn't fit in the basic 8 crayola box. We don't easily classify it. It's still that way-- on Hornets boards, people still say the new Creole blue is the same as teal to them, but to me it simply looks like they switched to light blue with just a hint of green.

The only other color I think is as unusual is the seldom-used Magenta. The WFL's Southern California Sun combined it with orange, but it again is too hard to easily classify and fit in the box-- is it purple? red? pink? No it's somewhere in between and difficult to pin down, and on retro-wear offerings this is obvious. I've seen some shops print it as purple, some as pink; Classic Sports logos got it closest.

[DeadFish]

i would have thought one of the reasons football and baseball teams tend to have few green teams might well be clashing with the grass.

I think there might be something to this, when the Australian Football League umpires started wearing colours (traditionally wore all white, now wear a colour chosen to avoid colour clashes) there were some reports of players complaining that they were unable to avoid contact with umpires in green because they were struggling to see them.

[TruColor]

My question is why did "teal" or "turquoise" only become big in the '90s? It's not like the color was just "invented" then, or the technology to produce it wasn't available.

Just rattling off the top of my head here....

-- First, lets' all remember that the trail was blazed by the Miami Dolphins in the late 60s with their green-blue mixture, which they dubbed AQUA. The only team that had blue-green for years.

-- Of course the second team to use that shade was the (then)Charlotte Hornets, under which it was called teal. And teal leading a trend ties in to who it was used by-- a FASHION DESIGNER (North Carolina native Alexander Julian, to be exact). Had a fashion designer ever designed unis before? Not that I'm aware of, and in the yuppie -age 1980s, it added an immmediate note of cache'. The Hornets also added wide-style pinstripes and pleated pants (for a while). But Julian saw something bigger, he KNEW in 1987 as a designer that shades of blue-green were going to be big for the next few years. And the color teal WAS big-- not just in sports unis, but also in regular clothes, everyday geegaws and gadgets, and most notably, CARS (it seemed every 4th car on the road back in the early 90s was teal/aqua; I bought a Mazda MX3 and that was one of the most popular colors offered).

-- But why was it not popular before? Why was it only something used by the Dolphins in terms of sports unis? My simple explanation is that it doesn't fit the "basic Crayola" test. We all grew up with Crayolas. Some had the big 64 color box (with the sharpener that always clogged) and knew of such colors as Cornflower, Magenta and Burnt Sienna. Some had the 16 color box and got basic adjoining (and confusing) combos such as yellow-orange, orange-yellow, blue-green and green-blue. But ALL of us could relate to the basic 8 colors. Red, yellow, orange, blue, green, purple, brown and black. Throw in universally known silver and gold (shiny gold, as we geeks call it "old gold" or "vegas gold"), and you've got the basic palette you learned in kindergarten. EVERY team we knew could be reduced to these basics. Even slightly askew colors, as kids and even as most grown-ups, we could relate to-- the Lions Honolulu blue, or the Brave's navy blue, or Carolina blue are, after all, just a shade of BLUE. The Redskins' burgundy, Alabama's Crimson, even Mississippi State's maroon (another seldom used color) are usually seen as shades of RED. Texas' burnt orange is by name, at least, ORANGE. Lime green by name is still GREEN.

But aqua/teal/turquoise doesn't fit that mold so easily. Is it green, or is it blue? It's both, but neither. It's there in the spectrum, in the rainbow, but it doesn't fit in the basic 8 crayola box. We don't easily classify it. It's still that way-- on Hornets boards, people still say the new Creole blue is the same as teal to them, but to me it simply looks like they switched to light blue with just a hint of green.

The only other color I think is as unusual is the seldom-used Magenta. The WFL's Southern California Sun combined it with orange, but it again is too hard to easily classify and fit in the box-- is it purple? red? pink? No it's somewhere in between and difficult to pin down, and on retro-wear offerings this is obvious. I've seen some shops print it as purple, some as pink; Classic Sports logos got it closest.

Good post. I think you've nailed it there.

Magenta is another good example of a "problem" color. Trying to estimate the Southern California Sun's colors has always been a bit problematic for me...here's what I came up with:

[UnclearInitial]

yellow and blue, orange and black, green and yellow, green and blue all work well

[Anubis2051]

Watching the Nats game tonight, I saw their logo on a green banner on the backstop, and I started thinking (and I know I'm going to catch heat for saying this), but I wouldn't mind seeing them adopt a Green-Red-White color scheme. I think it could work, especially if they keep gold on as an accent color. And I know some people will take an even bigger exception to this because they play in the capital, so the have to be Red, White, and Blue, but they're already basically a Red-White-Gold team, with the only remnant of Blue being in the Road Cap. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but I'm just sick of the red, white, and blue motif in MLB, and I want to see teams try something different. It's too bad the Brewers, Rays, DBacks, Padres, and Astro's won't go back to their old, superior, color schemes.

[tBBP]

Watching the Nats game tonight, I saw their logo on a green banner on the backstop, and I started thinking (and I know I'm going to catch heat for saying this), but I wouldn't mind seeing them adopt a Green-Red-White color scheme. I think it could work, especially if they keep gold on as an accent color. And I know some people will take an even bigger exception to this because they play in the capital, so the have to be Red, White, and Blue, but they're already basically a Red-White-Gold team, with the only remnant of Blue being in the Road Cap. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but I'm just sick of the red, white, and blue motif in MLB, and I want to see teams try something different. It's too bad the Brewers, Rays, DBacks, Padres, and Astro's won't go back to their old, superior, color schemes.

You won't catch any flak from me, patna, because I completely agree with you--red and green is a sorely underused combo in major pro sports. To your point, both the Capitals and Wizards operated under a blue/black/gold scheme for years while playing in the nation's capital (or course the Wizz still do...for now), and then of course there's the Redskins, so I don't think any of the nation's capital's team necessarily have to tie themselves down to red, white, and blue.

Back to the red and green, though...I don't know that the Nationals are the right team to do it, but dammit, some MLB team needs to. The Twins could, being that they'd feed off the Minnesota Wild in that way, but as for who else could try it, I don't know...the Cleveland Indians, maybe?

(And actually, now that I think about it, that might make perfect damn sense--green is the color of Ohio University, and red [scarlet] is the color of Ohio State University, so at least they'll have precedent. Hell, I say the Indians pair those two colors up and make it do what it do.)

[LMU]

I've always thought the Mariners should sub out their teal for a shade of green while keeping everything else intact.

[cjonesy108]

the green on green bucks jersey is beautiful. i would love to see that used again.

i started looking through college logos and found some pretty nice green themes:

colorado state, hawaii, manhattan, marshall, miami, oregon (for better and worse), south florida and my personal fav, michigan state.

It's too bad the Brewers, Rays, DBacks, Padres, and Astro's won't go back to their old, superior, color schemes.

totally agree!

[The_Admiral]

Didn't the Caps and Wizards use slate and bronze to match the Presidential Seal, so that they could look Washingtonian without red/white/blue? Putting the Nationals in red and green doesn't make any sense.

The Indians should be in sepia and red if they were to change colors and break from the pack, not green. If any team should be wearing green, it should be the Rays, who were doing it fairly well before they became A Team From A Place.

[CheeseHusker]

It's not just America that is missing Green either - despite Australian national teams generally playing in green and gold, there is a dearth of green in the country's major sporting competitions.

The premier Australian Football comp the AFL (which started as the VFL in 1897) took until 1994 to feature a team (still just the one of sixteen). The NRL (Rugby League) has two teams in 16 with green.

And Fremantle has all be pretty much dropped the small amount of green they had anyway, save for a quarter of their home jumper.

Worse still in all of this is that there are two brand new teams coming into the competition and they've both opted for - wait for it - red, white and blue, and red and yellow.

[Evan]

here are some of my thoughts regarding the lack of green in major sports

For the NBA and NFL, I see a lack of green because the two teams with green predominately are very popular and 'own' the look so to speak. Boston and Green Bay have had green so long and other teams just don't really consider green as an option when developing a new brand. This is just one thought that popped to my mind.

[BlueSky]

Perhaps the little use of green has to do with the playing surfaces of baseball and football being green.

The simplest answer is usually the best one...and this makes perfect sense.

My question is why did "teal" or "turquoise" only become big in the '90s? It's not like the color was just "invented" then, or the technology to produce it wasn't available.

Not sure, but I had one of these...not that I wanted it necessarily, I wanted a gold one, but this is all they had (Saturns, believe it or not, were hot then) and the dealer said it would be a month or more before other colors arrived. Patience wasn't my strong suit back then, so I sucked it up and went with this.

All's well that ends well though...drove it for 6 years and 93K miles - amazingly, all but 200 of those miles were within the DFW Metroplex - and got 25% of what I paid for it when I sold it.

Don't forget that, for a long time, teams ordered from the manufacturer's standard color palette.

When Vince Lombardi moved to Washington, he changed suppliers, and the Redskins' primary color was changed as a result:

So it shouldn't be surprising that a color like teal wasn't in much use.

No, it's not surprising, but not for that reason alone. In the 1950's/1960's, were guys like Unitas, Nitschke, Butkus, or Ditka going to run out on the field in teal? Let's face it, teal is not the manliest color on the wheel. Not the least macho (we'll never see full-time pink unis) by far, but in that era? Wasn't happening.

[Gothamite]

I dunno, is athletic gold a particularly macho color? Orange? Purple? The yellow jackets, we were recently reminded, wore gold and light blue. NFL players didn't have much problem wearing those, evan back in the Ironman era.

Neither did UCLA players have an issue with light blue, or Tennessee with creamsicle. I think uniform color, not to mention uniforms in general, is overblown when it comes to players - players want to play in the colors of good teams regardless of what they are.

Perhaps the little use of green has to do with the playing surfaces of baseball and football being green.

The simplest answer is usually the best one...and this makes perfect sense.

Hmm. I'm just not buying it. The NFL has had green teams going back to its founding. Heck, in the 1930s and 1940s, it had two or three teams wearing green at once.

[BlueSky]

I dunno, is athletic gold yellow a particularly macho color? Orange? Purple? The yellow jackets, we were recently reminded, wore gold and light blue. NFL players didn't have much problem wearing those, evan back in the Ironman era.

Neither did UCLA players have an issue with light blue, or Tennessee with creamsicle. I think uniform color, not to mention uniforms in general, is overblown when it comes to players - players want to play in the colors of good teams regardless of what they are.

Perhaps the little use of green has to do with the playing surfaces of baseball and football being green.

The simplest answer is usually the best one...and this makes perfect sense.

Hmm. I'm just not buying it. The NFL has had green teams going back to its founding. Heck, in the 1930s and 1940s, it had two or three teams wearing green at once.

Fair points at the top, though I FYP...

As for the other point, that's the point of this thread, isn't it? Why more teams didn't/don't wear green? The field theory is a reasonable explanation for that, although the bottom line answer is likely a combination of different factors.

[no97]

Interesting that the WCHA (Western Collegiate Hockey Association) has 3 teams in green, half in red (including maroon), and none in blue:

Alaska-Anchorage - green and gold

Bemidji State - green and white

Colorado College - black and gold

Denver - maroon and gold

Michigan Tech - black and gold

Minnesota - maroon and gold

Minnesota State - purple and black

Minnesota-Duluth - maroon and gold

Nebraska-Omaha - red and black

North Dakota - green and black

St. Cloud State - red and black

Wisconsin - red and white

[phlash]

I thought of this thread when I read this.

Kinda interesting how green dominates color usage outside of sport's team identities.

[Gothamite]

It's also interesting that green was a color conspicuously absent from food packaging for a long time. Very few food products used green, as it was believed to be associated with moldy food.

Until the concept of "light" or "healthy" packaged food became popular, and green was its associated color. Now it's everywhere, in that context.

[hawk36]

Perhaps the little use of green has to do with the playing surfaces of baseball and football being green.

This would be my unofficial and wildly uneducated guess as well...

Me too. Sounder FC neon green is bright enough to stand out. If they were grass green, it'd be really difficult to see fellow players. Wonder what the Portland Timbers will do regarding this.

[uniformity]

Teal was hugely popular in the fifties and early sixties. Haven't you guys ever been to a classic car show?

[Chawls]

I dunno, is athletic gold yellow a particularly macho color? Orange? Purple? The yellow jackets, we were recently reminded, wore gold and light blue. NFL players didn't have much problem wearing those, evan back in the Ironman era.

Neither did UCLA players have an issue with light blue, or Tennessee with creamsicle. I think uniform color, not to mention uniforms in general, is overblown when it comes to players - players want to play in the colors of good teams regardless of what they are.

Perhaps the little use of green has to do with the playing surfaces of baseball and football being green.

The simplest answer is usually the best one...and this makes perfect sense.

Hmm. I'm just not buying it. The NFL has had green teams going back to its founding. Heck, in the 1930s and 1940s, it had two or three teams wearing green at once.

Fair points at the top, though I FYP...

As for the other point, that's the point of this thread, isn't it? Why more teams didn't/don't wear green? The field theory is a reasonable explanation for that, although the bottom line answer is likely a combination of different factors.

From one Saints fan to another, thank you for fixing his post