The Padres and Dodgers will be opening the 2024 season with a two-game home-and-home series in Seoul, South Korea (plus some exhibition games against Korean teams prior to that). The San Diego Union-Tribune has a new article about the Padres’ trip to Seoul, and it includes some good uni info.
First, there’s this:
The Padres equipment staff has packed two sets of uniforms (plus half of another). They are the home team March 20 and the visitor for the second game, as the Padres and Dodgers each agreed to give up one home date apiece. For the exhibitions against Team Korea on March 17 and the LG Twins on March 18, the Padres will wear their spring training pants and brown jersey tops.
And then there’s the meatier info:
The uniform the Padres wear in the opener will be slightly different than their normal home uniform. The sleeves will have a commemorative Seoul Series patch instead of the 20th anniversary patch and the patch of the Seoul Series sponsor (Coupang Play) instead of the Padres’ usual Motorola sponsor patch. The games in Korea will be the only ones this season in which the Padres do not wear the heart-shaped patch containing the initials “PS” to honor Chairman Peter Seidler, who died in November.
Let’s break that down and expand upon it a bit, one element at a time:
- The Padres are wearing a stadium-anniversary patch on their home jersey this season, but that patch will be replaced by the Seoul Series patch for the March 20 game. Here’s a comparison (sorry, the image on the right is the best view I’ve been able to find of the Seoul Series patch):
- Although not mentioned in the Union-Tribune article, both teams will also be wearing commemorative cap patches, which we’ve already seen.
- As is typical for MLB World Tour games, there will be series-specific uniform advertisers. Per the Union-Tribune report, it will be Coupang Play, which is a streaming service. Their sleeve advertisement, which will supplant the Padres’ and Dodgers’ usual sleeve ads, will presumably be based on their logo, which looks like this:
- Although not mentioned in the Union-Tribune article, history strongly suggests that there will also be a separate advertiser for the batting helmets.
- Finally, there’s the puzzling revelation that the Padres will not wear their heart-shaped Peter Seidler memorial patch for the Korean series. Why would they do that? Did Seidler have some issues with Korea? Do the letters “PS” have some sort of negative cultural significance in Korea? Very strange.
The season opener on March 20 will be televised on ESPN and is scheduled to begin at 6am Eastern.
(My thanks to Matthew Wolfram for bringing the Union-Tribune article to my attention.)
The Celebration of life for Peter Seidler is March 22 and that’s presumably when they will formally “present” the commemorative patch. Even though it’s already been revealed through media guide photos and various social media posts, it hasn’t made itself onto a game uniform yet and they likely want to wait until the celebration.
Good analysis, Mike. Thanks!!
I have such a strong disdain for ads on uniforms/fields/stadiums/ice, I make it a purpose NOT to buy anything I see an ad for during or at a sporting event.
Question about the Padres’ Petco Park patch. I thought teams were not allowed to use stadium names when there was a corporate name in the stadium name. I remember the Mets had those horrible and vague “Inaugural Year” patches for Citi Field but were not allowed to use the name “Citi” in there anywhere.
Seems like the Petco patch would violate that.
That was when corporate advertising wasn’t allowed on uniforms.
Obviously, that is no longer the case.
Thanks, Manfred!
I like this Seoul Series logo and its central font.
The newspaper is the Union-Tribune, not the Times-Union.
Thanks for that catch. I got it right on the first mention but messed up all the subsequent mentions. Now fixed!
To my eye, those MLB World Tour patches are really uninspired. I don’t know what their design process was but they seem to have chosen the least interesting option. It would have been nice to see a little color, maybe. Or some graphic nod to where the games are being played. Block o’ text is pretty dull.