2013 NFL uniform/logo changes

[Chromatic]

There's really nothing wrong with the program except for the actual lack of money the NFL sends to ACS. The NFL probably chose breast cancer because it either 1) affects the most people or 2) has the ability to affect the most people, since there are more women than men in the U.S. and the world. Plus it appeals to a demographic that historically isn't drawn to the NFL like men.

Cross off one and two. This is solely about marketing. Part of it is appealing to the female demographic, but I doubt ladies who otherwise wouldn't watch football will tune in because they heard about pink cleats being worn. The NFL jumped on the hot cause of the moment. There are plenty of other cancers which have the potential to do as much harm, but they don't have strong marketing arms making a color synonymous with their cause. Pink has been omnipresent the last several Octobers, and the NFL latched on to it. It does this month not to bring attention to the cause, but to bring positive attention to itself, particularly in the light of the negative attention as more and more concussion stuff they swept under the rug comes to light.

Breast Cancer is the 'big' cancer. Its the one that seems to get the majority of attention. Thats the main reason I think the NFL hopped on the pink bandwagon.

Another reason is that pink stands out quite a bit, and no team uses pink as part of their colour scheme. You wouldn't see all the teams decked out in blue for prostate cancer or red for aids awareness, for example.

[WSU151]

There's really nothing wrong with the program except for the actual lack of money the NFL sends to ACS. The NFL probably chose breast cancer because it either 1) affects the most people or 2) has the ability to affect the most people, since there are more women than men in the U.S. and the world. Plus it appeals to a demographic that historically isn't drawn to the NFL like men.

Cross off one and two. This is solely about marketing. Part of it is appealing to the female demographic, but I doubt ladies who otherwise wouldn't watch football will tune in because they heard about pink cleats being worn. The NFL jumped on the hot cause of the moment. There are plenty of other cancers which have the potential to do as much harm, but they don't have strong marketing arms making a color synonymous with their cause. Pink has been omnipresent the last several Octobers, and the NFL latched on to it. It does this month not to bring attention to the cause, but to bring positive attention to itself, particularly in the light of the negative attention as more and more concussion stuff they swept under the rug comes to light.

I'm not going to cross off one and two quite yet And yes, it is all about marketing.

Doing a quick search, prostate cancer is actually the most common cancer, but I doubt dudes watching football want to be reminded about the the two-finger poke. Breast cancer is the second most common cancer.

[PhlyBoy]

Taking a break from the pink talk here, In what may be an unpopular opinion but after seeing them again today I like the Denver all blue soooo much better than the orange.

[wonderbread]

There's really nothing wrong with the program except for the actual lack of money the NFL sends to ACS. The NFL probably chose breast cancer because it either 1) affects the most people or 2) has the ability to affect the most people, since there are more women than men in the U.S. and the world. Plus it appeals to a demographic that historically isn't drawn to the NFL like men.

Cross off one and two. This is solely about marketing. Part of it is appealing to the female demographic, but I doubt ladies who otherwise wouldn't watch football will tune in because they heard about pink cleats being worn. The NFL jumped on the hot cause of the moment. There are plenty of other cancers which have the potential to do as much harm, but they don't have strong marketing arms making a color synonymous with their cause. Pink has been omnipresent the last several Octobers, and the NFL latched on to it. It does this month not to bring attention to the cause, but to bring positive attention to itself, particularly in the light of the negative attention as more and more concussion stuff they swept under the rug comes to light.

Breast Cancer is the 'big' cancer. Its the one that seems to get the majority of attention. Thats the main reason I think the NFL hopped on the pink bandwagon.

Another reason is that pink stands out quite a bit, and no team uses pink as part of their colour scheme. You wouldn't see all the teams decked out in blue for prostate cancer or red for aids awareness, for example.

thats just it, it stands out to much and ruins the aesthetic of every teams look, they could have went about this in a more subtle way that doesnt ruin ever teams look.

[wonderbread]

Regarding the pink, if everyone knows about breast cancer, then the NFL is doing exactly what they wanted. I do agree that they should cut down the number of games though: 2 in the middle of October. Each team gets one home game during those two weeks. Would make everyone here happy (or less angry) but would still be long enough to make an impact.

or everyone know from common knowledge of it being everywhere not just in the NFL

[4_tattoos]

Taking a break from the pink talk here, In what may be an unpopular opinion but after seeing them again today I like the Denver all blue soooo much better than the orange.

Always thought the Broncos all blue look needed orange socks. Especially now that we're in the era of team colored shoes.

[Chromatic]

Taking a break from the pink talk here, In what may be an unpopular opinion but after seeing them again today I like the Denver all blue soooo much better than the orange.

Definitely unpopular. I love their orange unis.

[illini1]

The worst part of this pink is that it'll never go away now because feminists would throw a fit. We don't need an entire month of pink gear ruining the uniforms to know what breast cancer is. And the fact that 95% of the money from this goes to the owners' pockets shows it's all a cynical grab for women's merchandise sales and good PR.

I'm not real fond of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. There are a number of scandals involving them. They accept millions each year from pharmaceutical companies who have no incentive to find a cure. They make millions each year treating cancer. A cure would be a big financial hit for them. They also accept millions from chemical companies. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Susan G Komen Foundation doesn't believe there's a link between certain plastics (like BPA) and cancer. These chemical companies happen to make these plastics. There are many other more reputable charities for the NFL to do business with.

[The_Admiral]

The worst part of this pink is that it'll never go away now because feminists would throw a fit.

On the contrary, I think most feminists would be just fine with the NFL dialing it down. To wit:

http://jezebel.com/the-nfls-breast-cancer-awareness-campaign-is-still-a-s-1441208755

With all this shutdown hulabaloo, I almost forgot that October marks the annual pink barf tornado otherwise known as Breast Cancer Awareness month, a special time when corporations exploit our feelings of helplessness in the face of life's senseless brutality by directing people to Fight Cancer through the purchase of products. One of the most visible cheerleaders of *aWaReNeSs* has been the NFL's A Crucial Catch program, a bloated, inefficient, and unintentionally ironic program that does more to bolster the NFL's reputation than it's ever done for cancer patients. Sky, blue. Water, wet. Etc.

Last year, it was revealed that the Crucial Catch charity only donates a teeny percentage of its proceeds to actual cancer charities. In fact, the NFL won't even say for sure what percentage of its Crucial Catch-related merchandise even goes to "fighting cancer." From SportsOnEarth,

You'd need to use scientific notation with negative exponents to express what percentage of the NFL's annual revenues it contributes via A Crucial Catch. The campaign raised a combined $4.5 million during its first four years (2009-2012), including $1.5 million last year. League-wide revenues approached $8 billion in 2009, when NFL teams earned a median profit of $28.6 million, according to The Economics of the National Football League, a 2012 book edited by Kevin G. Quinn. (The NFL says it plans to donate $23 million to all community causes this year — less than one percent of its likely revenues.)

A Crucial Catch is much more about reminding female fans that they're welcome to spend their money on NFL merchandise and presenting a multi-billion dollar industry that's essentially a concussion factory as somehow concerned about public health, argues SoE's Ryan Basen. It's brilliant as a marketing scheme, but dishonest as a charitable organization.

So what happens to the rest of that money the NFL raises by slinging pink crap? The rest just gets cycled back into "maintaining the program," according to a spokesperson for A Crucial Catch. What comprises "maintaining the program"? Who knows! My best guess is that the program's astronomical "maintenance" costs involve buying pink crap from athleticwear manufacturers, buying ads about the program, and paying the people who run the program. It ain't "fighting cancer," that's for sure.

One could argue that the entire point of A Crucial Catch isn't raising money, but raising awareness. Pretty thoughts, sure, but that defense is problematic for a couple of reasons: first, it's impossible to gauge exactly how much "AWARENESS" is raised, how many women are screened because RG3 wore a pink armband or Justin Tuck held a pink football and made a pun about "tackling" cancer on an ad, but with the inescapable cultural pinkwashing that hits store shelves and airwaves every October, it's probably safe to assume that most people are plenty aware of breast cancer, that we've reached near-peak AWARENESS. Secondly, the sort of awareness that the NFL is promoting isn't necessarily good for women; a study a year ago found that an early breast cancer diagnosis often led women to undergo unnecessary treatment. And furthermore, encouraging women to get cancer treatment without considering that maybe, just maybe, the reason that 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer during their lifetimes isn't just all of our genes freaking out at once, that maybe something in the environment we inhabit seems like an obtuse way to fight a disease. Focusing exclusively on "curing" cancer without examining environmental causes of cancer is sort of like fixing a leaky ceiling by buying a big bucket.

Besides, I don't know why the NFL has to remind women to get breast exams at all; I can't turn on a football game without wondering how many players on the field have, at some point in their anointed athlete youth, creepily groped a woman's breasts. Oh yeah, I think as Ben Roethlisberger drops back to pass, mammograms.

[Sport]

My mom, sister, girlfriend, and one of my friends who is also a girl (or woman I guess. I'm too old to call people my age boys/girls), all expressed independent of one another to me knowing I'm the "sports uniform guy" that they thought the pink accessories were nothing more than a shallow attempt to pander towards the female "idiot" demographic. Their words, not mine.

I think it's fine if they did it for a week, and after about a week most players pretty much stop wearing the pink anyways. I've tolerated it in season's past, but when I saw the pink the penalty flags I thought that was a step too far. You shouldn't change the color of the official item that regulates the play on the field. That needs to stay yellow. It needs to be a color that's different from the hundreds of other tiny pink accessories all over the field. The flags were difficult to see yesterday amid all the other pink dots.

[waldowest]

As a woman, I find it laughable that the mass amount of pink is attribute to feminists. Offensive, too, but I'll refrain from sending this into an even worse direction. The pink is about making money. The NFL is probably the greediest professional sports league around, and what better way to make more money than make sure to get the demographic that generally doesn't buy a lot of merchandise? I'd like it if it was just a one week thing, or even if it was a scaled down version all month long, but they're just... going a step too far. Pink flags? It's too much. It reeks of greed. Throw it in the pile with the NBA's nickname jerseys and the short-sleeves.

[Sport]

The pink penalty flags will not return next week

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/10/07/pink-penalty-flags-wont-return-next-weekend/

It was probably the tweet I sent last night that convinced them.

[Gothamite]

The worst part of this pink is that it'll never go away now because feminists would throw a fit. We don't need an entire month of pink gear ruining the uniforms to know what breast cancer is. And the fact that 95% of the money from this goes to the owners' pockets shows it's all a cynical grab for women's merchandise sales and good PR.

I'm not real fond of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. There are a number of scandals involving them. They accept millions each year from pharmaceutical companies who have no incentive to find a cure. They make millions each year treating cancer. A cure would be a big financial hit for them. They also accept millions from chemical companies. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Susan G Komen Foundation doesn't believe there's a link between certain plastics (like BPA) and cancer. These chemical companies happen to make these plastics. There are many other more reputable charities for the NFL to do business with.

Agreed all around.

[rsaline]

AP just put this out. Definitely have to agree with David Bruton and the rest of this board - pink flags went a little too far.

http://pro32.ap.org/article/nfl-wont-use-pink-penalty-flags-week-6

[Legend]

There's really nothing wrong with the program except for the actual lack of money the NFL sends to ACS. The NFL probably chose breast cancer because it either 1) affects the most people or 2) has the ability to affect the most people, since there are more women than men in the U.S. and the world. Plus it appeals to a demographic that historically isn't drawn to the NFL like men.

Cross off one and two. This is solely about marketing. Part of it is appealing to the female demographic, but I doubt ladies who otherwise wouldn't watch football will tune in because they heard about pink cleats being worn. The NFL jumped on the hot cause of the moment. There are plenty of other cancers which have the potential to do as much harm, but they don't have strong marketing arms making a color synonymous with their cause. Pink has been omnipresent the last several Octobers, and the NFL latched on to it. It does this month not to bring attention to the cause, but to bring positive attention to itself, particularly in the light of the negative attention as more and more concussion stuff they swept under the rug comes to light.

Breast Cancer is the 'big' cancer. Its the one that seems to get the majority of attention. Thats the main reason I think the NFL hopped on the pink bandwagon.

Another reason is that pink stands out quite a bit, and no team uses pink as part of their colour scheme. You wouldn't see all the teams decked out in blue for prostate cancer or red for aids awareness, for example.

Every cancer is a "big" cancer, but the fact that the mortality rate of other cancers, prostate cancer for example, is much higher than breast cancer.

The cancer that probably needs the most money would be pancreatic, being that it is the most deadly if my memory serves me right.

I would be fine with a general cancer thing like the NHL and MLB do, that's fine. But this focusing on one single cancer is absurd. It's all because of the pseudo-criminal organization that is Susan G. Komen. That is why now we have a whole month of pink shoved down our throats.

I think it downplays the severity and awareness of other cancers that really deserve more attention than one everyone is aware about.

Regardless what they do, I don't want them to wear any other color for a month. We don't need blue, green, pink, or anything. It does nothing.

[rams80]

AP just put this out. Definitely have to agree with David Bruton and the rest of this board - pink flags went a little too far.

http://pro32.ap.org/article/nfl-wont-use-pink-penalty-flags-week-6

The pink penalty flags were first used in a Dolphins-Jets game last Oct. 28 after an 11-year-old wrote Commissioner Roger Goodell with the suggestion.

OK, that's probably a fictitious story thought up to justify some dumbarse decision made by marketing consultants, but still, you should know better than to take the advice of children.

[CS85]

AP just put this out. Definitely have to agree with David Bruton and the rest of this board - pink flags went a little too far.

http://pro32.ap.org/article/nfl-wont-use-pink-penalty-flags-week-6

It's been bitched about forever on these boards, but it's nice to see that the now-ridiculous pink obsession is being recognized by the league. Yes yes, it's mostly a ploy to get more women interested in the NFL, and of course the message is good and raises some money, but pink first down lines and flags? Enough. Enough.

I find it rather hypocritical that the NFL, arguably the most strict and rigid about uniform rules across sports, urges the players to wear as much pink bullcrap as they can fit on their bodies. How soon until there are pink alts? Pink helmets? Pink grass?

...and it all lasts a goddamn month?! Howabout a week? Or a pink ribbon decal on the back of helmets? Or an on-screen graphic?

[Saintsfan]

I personally have a slight problem with he NFL backing this one cause every year, when there are thousands of great causes that could do with the publicity. All makes it seem a bit too much like a commercial arrangement.

[Conrad.]

new pro bowl unis for 2014:

Story here:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9790956/nike-gives-pro-bowl-uniforms-radical-facelift

[BadSeed84]

Now the 20 people that would watch the pro bowl won't even be watching.

Ugly ugly ugly!