5 ms·

Colors of the Court – NBA Uniforms

85 points by abe94 2y ago

Keyframe 2y ago
light vs dark was in multiple sports due to early television being black and white. It made easy to understand what's going on on the screen.
- KineticLensman 2y ago
  “And for those of you watching in black and white, the pink ball is next to the green”
lnxg33k1 2y ago
My football team has started to do the same thing, every now and then they change jersey throughout the season (without counting the THREE they start the season with) in order to sell new ones They're making sports really hard to follow, and to be passionate about. Now I only watch it if I catch it in a bar and they have it on, I am hating football, it was on free tv, now some matches are on a paid TV, some other on another one, still paid, before it was wednesday, sunday, now it's monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday. I hope a lot of people stop watching it so that we can go back to something that makes sense
- newfocogi 2y ago
  Wow, my initial thoughts on more jersey variation is "that's kinda fun, but sometimes they're ugly". I'm surprised you think it makes sport hard to be passionate about. I assume you're referring to football (soccer) since you called them matches. Do you really think jersey changes are affecting your passion for sports or is this just another example of the system breaking down, but pay-to-watch is what's really hurting your interest?
  - lnxg33k1 2y ago
    It's hurting because they're constantly trying to sell you something, even the jersey is full of sponsor in soccer
- syndicatedjelly 2y ago
  The multicolored jerseys, not the incessant idiotic gambling ads, are what makes sports hard to watch apparently.
  - lnxg33k1 2y ago
    why not both, it's not the jersey in itself, its the constant tentative of sell you something
- mmooss 2y ago
  Aren't the sports generally growing their revenue and audiences? It seems the reason for the multicolored jerseys, gambling ads, etc. is you: 'You' (most people reading this) keep watching, no matter what.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
soared 2y ago
Very cool! Also interesting the the NFL is on a similar trend with color rush.
warner25 2y ago
It's the same story in Major League Baseball. The proliferation of alternate uniforms got so out-of-hand that the league imposed a limit of five different uniforms per team last year. Unfortunately, one of those uniforms is the City Connect uniform which is unrecognizable to the extreme for most teams. I hate it. I want every team to go back to a white home uniform with the team name (or logo like the classic Yankees, Cubs, Tigers), and a gray road uniform with the city name, and maybe one colorful Sunday home alternate worn sparingly. It's bad enough that the rosters have high turnover every year due to free agency. I've said for a long time that it seems silly to have a favorite team, because you're basically cheering for the uniform (i.e. because the people in the uniform are changing constantly) but now that's not even true anymore.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  >the City Connect uniform which is unrecognizable to the extreme for most teams but it gets even worse in gradations, compare the Milwaukee "Brew Crew" uniform which is kinda cool https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/t_16x9/t_w1536/mlb/smzcvffmyhxtam1hitzi https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/t_16x9/t_... to the similar color combination Boston "spray painted stencil" font abomination https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/t_16x9/t_w1536/mlb/lejilpknk6uqslcdsiza.jpg https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/t_16x9/t_...
  - warner25 2y ago
    True, I'm OK with an alternate, including the City Connect uniform for a few teams, that's basically a throwback uniform. Milwaukee's is kind of like that, at least with the colors. Also Atlanta's, Pittsburgh's, and Seattle's. The rest of them... no.
  - dfxm12 2y ago
    I get that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but why would you describe the font as an abomination? It seems unassuming and easy to read to me.
    - 2y ago
PaulRobinson 2y ago
Money is the main driver, of course. I think this trend started in the UK. Before the EPL, most English soccer clubs had one home, one away strip. It wasn’t that long ago that the only writing would be a single number on the back, a club crest over the front left chest (“near the heart”, you see). Around the 1980s, it seems to me that European leagues started to experiment - England taking a bit of a lead - with shirt sponsorship. One side effect was that shirts suddenly aged. Show me an Everton shirt with “NEC” on the front, or a Manchester City shirt with “brother”, well, I know roughly what season that shirt is from. And fans want to wear the current shirt, often. We can take the piss out of the “full kit wanker”, who turns up to a game in shirt, kit shorts and socks, waiting to be subbed in to his favourite team, but people like to show allegiance and they like to show they’re up to date - in the UK even your car number plate tells your neighbours how “with it”, and therefore how rich you are. Each season a club changed its shirt it would see a boost in income as new shirts would replace the old. This was new. And it gave them ideas. First, what about changing the kit when the sponsor doesn’t change? Some graphic design element, a neck line, maybe a subtle colour change? Then the “third kit” came in. Often used in cup competitions, but occasionally an option for league games. Infamously one grey third kit had to get changed at half time at Old Trafford, as none of the Man Utd team could see each other. And then as some non-domestic leagues took more prominence - European football in particular - some clubs decided to create home and away kits for those competitions specifically. So now we have a situation where clubs like Man City have 3 “base” shirts, plus goalkeeper, plus fashion variants, plus the women’s team… If other leagues can get away with this, they will. Most European leagues have a similar thing going on, and it surprised me that NBA took so long to catch up, and that NFL haven’t gone at this at full throttle. And of course, it has created a collector’s secondary market, special editions, anniversary shirts, “retro editions”, and so on. Sports teams sure know how to milk passion via the wallet.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- 101008 2y ago
  Great summary. My dad had only one or two jersey when he was a kid / teenager, because without sponsors they were all the same (maybe minor details)? Now I am usually one of those who get a new jersey every new season, or maybe two if I like both home and away designs. There were years when I didnt get any, but those were the exceptions.
derfnugget 2y ago
this is an exceptional example of modern website. very nice job. may i ask what framework you are using for the UX?
asdfasvea 2y ago
Jesus Christ almighty give me a site I can use if you want me to absorb your content. I'm not using a screen reader, I have javascript enabled, I have up to date chrome, yet somehow I can't navigate your artsy site. What do you think your non-standard navigation is adding that is worth the cost of pissing users off? What do I click on? Where's the content? Why am I guessing how to use your site? Actually, I'm done guessing and clicking the back button to get off this horrible thing.
- teach 2y ago
  I didn't downvote you, but I suspect others did because your comment goes against one of the guidelines for HN: "Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." These sorts-of comments always come up whenever The Pudding makes the front page, since their visual essays have a style that some find offputting. (Personally I think they're delightful.) Almost always, you navigate their essays by scrolling.
- stevage 2y ago
  Hey buddy, I love to complain too, but honestly I find the Pudding extremely easy to use. What could be more simple than keep scrolling down?
  - asdfasvea 2y ago
    I'm sure there's tons of simple ways to steer an automobile but if I don't see a wheel I'm not going anywhere in the thing.
littlekey 2y ago
The implication is that this is a bad thing, but I don't really see why. If you're not sure who's playing can't you just look at the score overlay and see? I don't follow sports but when I see a game on at a restaurant it only takes me a few seconds to determine which team is which.
- warner25 2y ago
  I think for a lot of us it's not a practical issue of determining which team is which, it's that sports are wrapped up in a lot of nostalgia. One grows up watching their team(s) as a kid and can continue to do so through the seasons of life even as everything else is changing. So it's sad when tradition is thrown away and it no longer feels like you're watching the same thing anymore. In my case, I was obsessed with baseball as a kid but I stopped playing and stopped following the professionals when I went to college, met my wife, started my career, had kids, etc. Now I'm coming back around to follow baseball again and I'm often like, "What is this? This isn't what I remember." The uniform changes are part of that.
dzonga 2y ago
blame nike for that uniform nonsense. and in the mlb quality of jerseys has gone down as well. for soccer nike kits for some teams have been an abormination or copy/paste jobs. in the nfl - meh.
duxup 2y ago
There's so many alternate uniforms they many seem like low effort spam. My team Timberwolves, some of their alternates are so simple they look like something you'd buy for your rec league at some small town screen printer...
crgk 2y ago
As a Chicago Bulls fan, this site seemed like a lot of effort to explain a very small shift in their jerseys. I’m happy to see the Bulls are a low-flair outlier, and it was cool to be able to switch teams to compare.
stevage 2y ago
Great data collection, nice data vil but somehow it fails to yield any interesting insights. I wish they had gotten into the why a bit more - are teams forced to choose jerseys that contrast with their opponents?
majormajor 2y ago
The odds of really driving off long-time fans with uniform variations are low. The odds of selling more jerseys to young fans - and possibly making new young fans as a result - are high. Long-time fans have complained about the changes in sports for as long as there have been sports. Some of the new uniforms and courts especially have been terrible; I'll keep watching anyway.
Tempest1981 2y ago
I was expecting a mention of advertising. Anyone else find the referee's uniforms distracting, with the big red EMIRATES logos? Pic: https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/nba-emirates-patch-officials-referees-airline-logos-uniform/1e1cf3e312e2e51b8a29fba7 https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/nba-emirates-patch-...

85 points by abe94 2y ago

light vs dark was in multiple sports due to early television being black and white. It made easy to understand what's going on on the screen.

KineticLensman 2y ago
“And for those of you watching in black and white, the pink ball is next to the green”

lnxg33k1 2y ago

My football team has started to do the same thing, every now and then they change jersey throughout the season (without counting the THREE they start the season with) in order to sell new ones They're making sports really hard to follow, and to be passionate about. Now I only watch it if I catch it in a bar and they have it on, I am hating football, it was on free tv, now some matches are on a paid TV, some other on another one, still paid, before it was wednesday, sunday, now it's monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday. I hope a lot of people stop watching it so that we can go back to something that makes sense

newfocogi 2y ago
Wow, my initial thoughts on more jersey variation is "that's kinda fun, but sometimes they're ugly". I'm surprised you think it makes sport hard to be passionate about. I assume you're referring to football (soccer) since you called them matches. Do you really think jersey changes are affecting your passion for sports or is this just another example of the system breaking down, but pay-to-watch is what's really hurting your interest?
- lnxg33k1 2y ago
  It's hurting because they're constantly trying to sell you something, even the jersey is full of sponsor in soccer
syndicatedjelly 2y ago
The multicolored jerseys, not the incessant idiotic gambling ads, are what makes sports hard to watch apparently.
- lnxg33k1 2y ago
  why not both, it's not the jersey in itself, its the constant tentative of sell you something
mmooss 2y ago
Aren't the sports generally growing their revenue and audiences? It seems the reason for the multicolored jerseys, gambling ads, etc. is you: 'You' (most people reading this) keep watching, no matter what.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

soared 2y ago

Very cool! Also interesting the the NFL is on a similar trend with color rush.

warner25 2y ago

It's the same story in Major League Baseball. The proliferation of alternate uniforms got so out-of-hand that the league imposed a limit of five different uniforms per team last year. Unfortunately, one of those uniforms is the City Connect uniform which is unrecognizable to the extreme for most teams. I hate it. I want every team to go back to a white home uniform with the team name (or logo like the classic Yankees, Cubs, Tigers), and a gray road uniform with the city name, and maybe one colorful Sunday home alternate worn sparingly. It's bad enough that the rosters have high turnover every year due to free agency. I've said for a long time that it seems silly to have a favorite team, because you're basically cheering for the uniform (i.e. because the people in the uniform are changing constantly) but now that's not even true anymore.

fsckboy 2y ago
>the City Connect uniform which is unrecognizable to the extreme for most teams but it gets even worse in gradations, compare the Milwaukee "Brew Crew" uniform which is kinda cool https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/t_16x9/t_w1536/mlb/smzcvffmyhxtam1hitzi https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/t_16x9/t_... to the similar color combination Boston "spray painted stencil" font abomination https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/t_16x9/t_w1536/mlb/lejilpknk6uqslcdsiza.jpg https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/t_16x9/t_...
- warner25 2y ago
  True, I'm OK with an alternate, including the City Connect uniform for a few teams, that's basically a throwback uniform. Milwaukee's is kind of like that, at least with the colors. Also Atlanta's, Pittsburgh's, and Seattle's. The rest of them... no.
- dfxm12 2y ago
  I get that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but why would you describe the font as an abomination? It seems unassuming and easy to read to me.
  - 2y ago

PaulRobinson 2y ago

Money is the main driver, of course. I think this trend started in the UK. Before the EPL, most English soccer clubs had one home, one away strip. It wasn’t that long ago that the only writing would be a single number on the back, a club crest over the front left chest (“near the heart”, you see). Around the 1980s, it seems to me that European leagues started to experiment - England taking a bit of a lead - with shirt sponsorship. One side effect was that shirts suddenly aged. Show me an Everton shirt with “NEC” on the front, or a Manchester City shirt with “brother”, well, I know roughly what season that shirt is from. And fans want to wear the current shirt, often. We can take the piss out of the “full kit wanker”, who turns up to a game in shirt, kit shorts and socks, waiting to be subbed in to his favourite team, but people like to show allegiance and they like to show they’re up to date - in the UK even your car number plate tells your neighbours how “with it”, and therefore how rich you are. Each season a club changed its shirt it would see a boost in income as new shirts would replace the old. This was new. And it gave them ideas. First, what about changing the kit when the sponsor doesn’t change? Some graphic design element, a neck line, maybe a subtle colour change? Then the “third kit” came in. Often used in cup competitions, but occasionally an option for league games. Infamously one grey third kit had to get changed at half time at Old Trafford, as none of the Man Utd team could see each other. And then as some non-domestic leagues took more prominence - European football in particular - some clubs decided to create home and away kits for those competitions specifically. So now we have a situation where clubs like Man City have 3 “base” shirts, plus goalkeeper, plus fashion variants, plus the women’s team… If other leagues can get away with this, they will. Most European leagues have a similar thing going on, and it surprised me that NBA took so long to catch up, and that NFL haven’t gone at this at full throttle. And of course, it has created a collector’s secondary market, special editions, anniversary shirts, “retro editions”, and so on. Sports teams sure know how to milk passion via the wallet.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
101008 2y ago
Great summary. My dad had only one or two jersey when he was a kid / teenager, because without sponsors they were all the same (maybe minor details)? Now I am usually one of those who get a new jersey every new season, or maybe two if I like both home and away designs. There were years when I didnt get any, but those were the exceptions.

derfnugget 2y ago

this is an exceptional example of modern website. very nice job. may i ask what framework you are using for the UX?

asdfasvea 2y ago

Jesus Christ almighty give me a site I can use if you want me to absorb your content. I'm not using a screen reader, I have javascript enabled, I have up to date chrome, yet somehow I can't navigate your artsy site. What do you think your non-standard navigation is adding that is worth the cost of pissing users off? What do I click on? Where's the content? Why am I guessing how to use your site? Actually, I'm done guessing and clicking the back button to get off this horrible thing.

teach 2y ago
I didn't downvote you, but I suspect others did because your comment goes against one of the guidelines for HN: "Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." These sorts-of comments always come up whenever The Pudding makes the front page, since their visual essays have a style that some find offputting. (Personally I think they're delightful.) Almost always, you navigate their essays by scrolling.
stevage 2y ago
Hey buddy, I love to complain too, but honestly I find the Pudding extremely easy to use. What could be more simple than keep scrolling down?
- asdfasvea 2y ago
  I'm sure there's tons of simple ways to steer an automobile but if I don't see a wheel I'm not going anywhere in the thing.

littlekey 2y ago

The implication is that this is a bad thing, but I don't really see why. If you're not sure who's playing can't you just look at the score overlay and see? I don't follow sports but when I see a game on at a restaurant it only takes me a few seconds to determine which team is which.

warner25 2y ago
I think for a lot of us it's not a practical issue of determining which team is which, it's that sports are wrapped up in a lot of nostalgia. One grows up watching their team(s) as a kid and can continue to do so through the seasons of life even as everything else is changing. So it's sad when tradition is thrown away and it no longer feels like you're watching the same thing anymore. In my case, I was obsessed with baseball as a kid but I stopped playing and stopped following the professionals when I went to college, met my wife, started my career, had kids, etc. Now I'm coming back around to follow baseball again and I'm often like, "What is this? This isn't what I remember." The uniform changes are part of that.

dzonga 2y ago

blame nike for that uniform nonsense. and in the mlb quality of jerseys has gone down as well. for soccer nike kits for some teams have been an abormination or copy/paste jobs. in the nfl - meh.

duxup 2y ago

There's so many alternate uniforms they many seem like low effort spam. My team Timberwolves, some of their alternates are so simple they look like something you'd buy for your rec league at some small town screen printer...

crgk 2y ago

As a Chicago Bulls fan, this site seemed like a lot of effort to explain a very small shift in their jerseys. I’m happy to see the Bulls are a low-flair outlier, and it was cool to be able to switch teams to compare.

stevage 2y ago

Great data collection, nice data vil but somehow it fails to yield any interesting insights. I wish they had gotten into the why a bit more - are teams forced to choose jerseys that contrast with their opponents?

majormajor 2y ago

The odds of really driving off long-time fans with uniform variations are low. The odds of selling more jerseys to young fans - and possibly making new young fans as a result - are high. Long-time fans have complained about the changes in sports for as long as there have been sports. Some of the new uniforms and courts especially have been terrible; I'll keep watching anyway.

Tempest1981 2y ago

I was expecting a mention of advertising. Anyone else find the referee's uniforms distracting, with the big red EMIRATES logos? Pic: https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/nba-emirates-patch-officials-referees-airline-logos-uniform/1e1cf3e312e2e51b8a29fba7 https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/nba-emirates-patch-...