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Is Brown For The Padres Really a Popular Opinion?


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I'd love to see the numbers but my guess is the Padres generic navy look is a worse seller of merchandise than the brown was. Would be tough to figure out exactly since the industry has skyrocketed in recent years but you could look at:

- Percentage navy sold vs the rest of the MLB in 5 year increments during the navy era

- Percentage of brown sold vs the rest of the MLB in 5 year increments during the brown era

As it is, my experience has been I see more brown merchandise being worn than navy when I'm in San Diego. And, funny enough, I almost exclusively see brown Padres merchandise being worn outside San Diego, when traveling around the country. Guess it's trendy? Cool?

As we know, lots of people buy hats because they like the look, not because they're fans of the team. I contend that hardly anyone who doesn't root for the Padres would buy a current Padres hat. Why would you? If you want a navy and white hat, the Yankees hat is iconic. The Tigers hat is a small step below. If you want an iconic look with more than just navy and white, you could go to the Red Sox, Cardinals or Braves. If you want RWB with a less iconic, you could go with the Indians, Nationals or Twins.Or maybe you want different colors with navy, in which case you could get a Rays, Mariners, Brewers or Astros.

There is nothing noteworthy about the current SD logo, and I can't imagine that more than a handful of people nationally own a current hat without being Padres fans. And I'd guess that 3/4 of the people outside of California who own one bought the cap because their initials are SD. There are just much better options. Now, if they went brown... sure, that's something you can't get from another team. There's a reason why someone who doesn't root for the Padres might buy a brown Padres cap. I've considered buying a brown Padres cap before. It's something other teams don't offer (outside of fashion caps).

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Yeah, that's exactly what I said. If the Padres were really good, they'd sell caps nationally no matter what they wore. If they aren't competitive, nobody will buy the navy caps nationally. But there would still be reason to buy a brown Padres cap even if the team sucks - it's a nice looking cap and it's something that better or more iconic teams don't offer.

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While I do realize there are 30 MLB teams (4 to 6 too many in my estimation), I realize not every team can have a different color.

That being said, I loved it during the 1970s when you could tell much easier who was playing, especially on highlight reels.

The Phillies were in maroon/burgundy, the Pirates had mustard yellow/gold caps, the Marlins (early 90s) had the teal, the Astros orange, the Padres brown. Now it's a struggle for the most part to tell what teams are playing. Far too many teams wearing red or navy or black.

When I think of a padre, I think of a Franciscan priest, one who would wear a BROWN robe. To that end, the Padres should always be in brown. I loved the 1984 look. They won their first pennant in that look, yet decided to change the following season. The 1985-88 look was still fine though, but I missed seeing the yellow as part of their scheme. When they went to the navy caps in 1990 with the white S and the orange D, I never much liked those, and frankly their uniforms have been going downhill ever since.

Bring back the brown! No sense in putting off until tomorrow what you can do today Padres.

DO IT! That's an order! :D

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Does the MLB have a 2 or 3 year rule for changing uniforms like the NFL? Or, could the Padres change to brown today if they wanted to (not that the ownership would actually do that but just wondering)?

No 2/3 year rule, just deadlines they'd need to submit changes by and receive approval for. If they decided this afternoon to make a change, it couldn't be implemented until the following season.
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Guess we have the rethink the whole brown Padres thing. From California Mission Life, "The robe was grey in color, and was made from a rough cloth called sackcloth"

It's also true that the actual vikings did not have horns on their helmets. People accept the MN Viking horns because that's the existing image. Brown robes are the image that most of us have for the padres at the Missions. So I'd argue it still works.

While this may weaken the argument for brown, I'd still argue that the Brown of 1969-1990 is what defined the team and it would go along way toward the team being recognizable if they went back to it, regardless of what the true robe color was.

Disclaimer: If this comment is about an NBA uniform from 2017-2018 or later, do not constitute a lack of acknowledgement of the corporate logo to mean anything other than "the corporate logo is terrible and makes the uniform significantly worse."

 

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I say bring back the uniforms the Padres wore back in '84 - or some variation of them.

The brown cap, gold front panel, brown SD outlined in orange, was one of the greatest caps of all time. They need to re-adopt that color scheme asap, even with their modern fonts, etc.

No. Those were some of the worst. Messy and the brown and yellow with unnecessary orange took an already meh look and made it worse. That and the Taco Bell caps should never again sully the Padres heads.

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Guess we have the rethink the whole brown Padres thing. From California Mission Life, "The robe was grey in color, and was made from a rough cloth called sackcloth"

padresgrey.jpg

Beat me to it. Not saying historical California friars necessarily wore blue, but they didn't wear brown as often as the misinformed public would like to think. The common "mind's eye" might think brown for many people. But that doesn't mean they're right.

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I'd love to see the numbers but my guess is the Padres generic navy look is a worse seller of merchandise than the brown was. Would be tough to figure out exactly since the industry has skyrocketed in recent years but you could look at:

- Percentage navy sold vs the rest of the MLB in 5 year increments during the navy era

- Percentage of brown sold vs the rest of the MLB in 5 year increments during the brown era

As it is, my experience has been I see more brown merchandise being worn than navy when I'm in San Diego. And, funny enough, I almost exclusively see brown Padres merchandise being worn outside San Diego, when traveling around the country. Guess it's trendy? Cool?

As we know, lots of people buy hats because they like the look, not because they're fans of the team. I contend that hardly anyone who doesn't root for the Padres would buy a current Padres hat. Why would you? If you want a navy and white hat, the Yankees hat is iconic. The Tigers hat is a small step below. If you want an iconic look with more than just navy and white, you could go to the Red Sox, Cardinals or Braves. If you want RWB with a less iconic, you could go with the Indians, Nationals or Twins.Or maybe you want different colors with navy, in which case you could get a Rays, Mariners, Brewers or Astros.

There is nothing noteworthy about the current SD logo, and I can't imagine that more than a handful of people nationally own a current hat without being Padres fans. And I'd guess that 3/4 of the people outside of California who own one bought the cap because their initials are SD. There are just much better options. Now, if they went brown... sure, that's something you can't get from another team. There's a reason why someone who doesn't root for the Padres might buy a brown Padres cap. I've considered buying a brown Padres cap before. It's something other teams don't offer (outside of fashion caps).

All of which is interesting, but not a reason for the Padres to change colors. They're not in the business of catering to a few guys who live outside San Diego who might buy a cap because it's the only option in that color. They're in the business of catering to Padres fans, who buy the vast bulk of their merch. And they sell a ton of blue stuff to those folks, both the current stuff and the still very popular '98 gear. They sell a large amount of the retro brown too, but in San Diego where it actually matters, there's a good spread of both, but more blue than brown. Especially among anyone under 35.

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I'm not so sure about that 50/50 brown/blue statement. I see a lot more brown than blue around town. Granted I like the brown and maybe notice it more than the blue because of that.

Bottom line though is more merchandise sales means more money and more money (in theory) means better teams, and better teams mean more fan support, etc. etc. So whether the money is coming from San Diego or from the rest of the USA, the color that sells the most is the best for the team, right?

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I'm not so sure about that 50/50 brown/blue statement. I see a lot more brown than blue around town. Granted I like the brown and maybe notice it more than the blue because of that.

Bottom line though is more merchandise sales means more money and more money (in theory) means better teams, and better teams mean more fan support, etc. etc. So whether the money is coming from San Diego or from the rest of the USA, the color that sells the most is the best for the team, right?

Not really. They produce and sell a ton of brown stuff now. If people want to buy it and give the team money for it... it's not hard to find. Particularly those out of towners who have a hard on for the brown. Meanwhile the locals, who seem to overall like blue more, continue to buy the blue locally. Switch to brown and they're likely to sell less locally as the blue folks won't necessarily buy it, the brown folks area already buying it, and the same goes for out of towners.

I suspect this is why they haven't changed. Sales are higher the way they are now, than the way they'd be if the team officially went brown.

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My brother who still lives in San Diego said he bought and wears the blue Padres cap, not for the Padres, but to match his Chargers stuff. Likes the baseball SD style better than the bolt on a hat. But, he wears the brown Padres cap to Padres games. Wonder if there is a lot more of that going around that increases the blue sales?

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My brother who still lives in San Diego said he bought and wears the blue Padres cap, not for the Padres, but to match his Chargers stuff. Likes the baseball SD style better than the bolt on a hat. But, he wears the brown Padres cap to Padres games. Wonder if there is a lot more of that going around that increases the blue sales?

That may the worst reason to keep a color scheme, to match another teams brand.

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I've said this before, but I wish the Marlins had used the Dolphins colors when they did their redesign. Unpopular opinion alert, but I'd love to see the Buccaneers and Rays in red and orange. The Rays would just have to keep it toned down and avoid loud red or orange alternate jerseys.

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My brother who still lives in San Diego said he bought and wears the blue Padres cap, not for the Padres, but to match his Chargers stuff. Likes the baseball SD style better than the bolt on a hat. But, he wears the brown Padres cap to Padres games. Wonder if there is a lot more of that going around that increases the blue sales?

That may the worst reason to keep a color scheme, to match another teams brand.

Just saw this today.

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I'll add my two cents to this conversation. Whether you care or not, here's what I think: When at least half of the entire MLB teams have a blue jersey in their rotation and when most of the teams in the Major Leagues have some form of blue in their identity, why shouldn't the Padres embrace Brown. Right now, they don't have an identity with their current look at all. From a selling point, I understand why teams prefer blue but I think that it is really nice to see a team or two have a unique look. If Brown and Gold isn't a unique look for a sports team in 2014 going into 2015, I don't know what is. I think the Padres could create something awesome with Brown as their main color. I actually really like their throwbacks, especially the 70's look with the yellow on top. From what I have seen, Brown is like the band, Rush. Either you really like it or you hate it. Brown is a tough color to create a great look around. I know that blue is a much, much easier color to work with, but, I hope they end up switching back to brown.

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