Good morning Uni Watchers. It’s Friday — we made it!
The Texas Tech Red Raiders unveiled a new uniform late yesterday, and it’s not your typical football uniform. Designed by adidas, NFL Quarterback (and former Red Raider) Patrick Mahomes and the team, it features Mahomes’ signature “Gladiator” logo — one of the first times in history that an athlete’s personal brand has been included in official on-field apparel. Mahomes’ logo is shown on the right in the graphic below:
On July 1 of this year, adidas, Patrick Mahomes and Texas Tech University announced a new 10-year partnership, and as part of the deal, adidas became the official footwear, uniform, apparel and accessory partner of the Texas Tech Raiders athletic teams. Their previous deal had been with Under Armour.
Mahomes, who has been an “adidas athlete” for years, first made waves in 2019 when he taped a handwritten adidas logo over a competitor brand while supporting Texas Tech basketball in 2019, played that up in the announcement video.
The Red Raiders, adidas and Mahomes immediately set out to design a new uniform for the team. Per the University, “The Mahomes Strategy uniform features a Dark Grey tackle swill with printed metallic films and Power Red accents. Inspired by the 45-degree bevel found across Texas Tech’s campus and the angular nature of Mahomes’ iconography, the helmet, logos and numbers are displayed in a metallic film with galvanized finishes. Texas Tech’s football team will wear the Mahomes Strategy uniform for the first time at home against Colorado on Nov. 9.”
Mahomes met with Texas Tech players on August 23rd, announcing “a little surprise” for them. This video captures a few seconds of that meeting, followed by the unveiling of the uniform.
“I believe y’all have everything it takes right here,” Mahomes told players on Aug. 23 before unveiling the jerseys. “So make sure when you put in the work every single day, when you step out of this building or step in it, you’re all in.”
The @PatrickMahomes Galvanized uniform.
Debuting 11•09•24#WreckEm | #TeamAdidas pic.twitter.com/vBWJWD199U
— Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) October 10, 2024
“Seeing my own logo on the Texas Tech uniform I put so much blood, sweat and tears in is one of the most meaningful off-field accomplishments of my career,” said Mahomes. “I want to thank the three-stripe family for giving me this one-of-a-kind opportunity.”
Let’s take a look at the uniform now.
HELMET
The helmet is dark gray, and features a white “double T” logo on both sides, in white and gray beveling, and outlined in red. The facemask is red. It has a center stripe that is a silver/gray with what is being referred to as a galvanized film with a metallic finish. This stripe has thin red stripes on either side.
JERSEY
Like the helmet, the jersey is also dark gray, featuring two semi-stripes on the shoulder caps, in the same metallic finish as the helmet stripe, and also outlined in red.
The front of the jersey has three logos across the top: BIG XII to the right, the Double-T on the base of the collar, and Mahomes’ logo on the left side. “TECH” stretches across the front, in the same silver/gray metallic as the sleeve cap stripes, also outlined in red.
Front numbers are, unsurprisingly, rendered in the same style as the sleeve stripes and the wordmark.
The jersey back will have player NOB in silver/gray, while the numbers are in silver/gray outlined in red (as on the front).
Of course, with the silver/gray material being reflective, anything coated with it will…well, reflect.
PANTS
The pants, like the rest of the uniform, are gray. There are two silver/gray stripes with red outlines running down the sides. They are shown with high red socks (in college, players are not required to wear high socks, although some do). The Mahomes logo will appear on the left hip.
As noted above, the team will debut these uniforms on November 9th, when the Red Raiders play the Colorado Buffaloes.
“The unveil of the adidas Strategy uniform by Patrick Mahomes further amplifies the power of this partnership,” said Kirby Hocutt, Director of Athletics at Texas Tech University. “We are proud to be the first collegiate adidas partner to utilize an athlete partner’s logo as there is no more powerful brand in sports than Patrick Mahomes. We look forward to debuting this uniform in front of a sold-out Jones AT&T Stadium on Nov. 9 against Colorado.”
OK then.
If we strip away all the corporate-speak and concentrate on the uniform, this is definitely one I’m going to need to see on the field before I can give a full and true opinion. The concept is certainly interesting, and while dark gray is decidedly not a school color, there is plenty of red accenting (T-Tech are the Red Raiders, afterall). In theory, and in the staged photos and video, the reflective silver/gray stripes and numbers look like they’ll be visible (and legible) on the field, but that remains to be seen. But I’m usually quite skeptical when “metallic” materials are used, as they can produce odd refractions and reflections, and can be very difficult to read (see: Notre Dame as exhibit #1). It’s also difficult to tell whether the numbers/stripes are a solid color (I think they have a pattern), but again, it’s tough to tell. I hope they’re solid and the pattern we see is simply the result of the angles of the metallic pieces.
It’s definitely different, but that’s not always a good thing. But as far as the layout/design, so long as everything is discernable, I like the look — cap stripes and pants stripes almost always make a uniform look better. I hope the players wear high red socks, as those will provide a nice contrast to the dark gray that is the rest of the kit.
I’m actually looking forward to seeing these under the lights at Jerry World on November 9th. But only then will we be able to truly tell if the uniform looks as good on the field as it does in the still shots and video.
Your thoughts?
::eyeroll::
Do the TT uniforms also includes magic pixie dust that can lead to more favorable referee whistles?
Nothing says RED Raiders quite like an all dark gray uniform.
I never even knew Mahomes had a brand logo. I would have had no idea that was what it was unless I read it here.
I see several things wrong with this but at least there isn’t a basketball player on a football jersey!
LOL!! I never thought about that!
I like the color combo in the abstract, like Phil says, we’ll have to wait to see how it will look on the field.
GTGFTS
1959 World Series Game 1
Early Wynn completing his warm ups before delivering to Maury Wills in front of 48,013.
First postseason game in Chicago in 14 years
Damage has been done and the score holds for a Sox 11-0 victory.
However, Dodgers win the Series a week later 4-2.
Complete with the white stirrups Bill Veeck brought out for the Series.
GTGFTU
I think they only wore blue pants and red socks once in their history, that was against the Eagles in the 1976 season. Sept 19, 1976?
“one of the first times in history that an athlete’s personal brand has been included in official on-field apparel” maybe nitpicking here, but what about Jordan brand being… everywhere?
Having a players logo on your jerseys is so embarrassing. Guess they should’ve stuck with under armour.
And have Uncle Andy’s initials on the jersey instead?
Hmmm, so another mono outfit to please the players? Smart move. I do like the striping/ numbering/ NOB with the bright red outlines and the choice of bright red socks. But it still looks very drab and depressing instead of cool. Guess my definition of cool is different.
I think Ohio State and Tampa Bay both did this better.
Something about those personal monogram logos for pro athletes always seems cheesy and self-indulgent.
I’m skeptical about the metallic numbers, but the stripes do look good.
posting for the first time to talk about this – sorry if it’s already been discussed elsewhere but based on the merch available online and all evidence in the uniforms teams have chosen to wear this MLB postseason, I am convinced there is some external factor preventing teams from wearing their City Connects in the postseason. Looking at the available Mets merch on Fanatics, there are “postseason” patch hats for their standard blue and orange, as well as the hats for their blue and black alternates. There is no postseason patch hat available for their City Connect hat and it appears on a cursory review that the same goes for every other team. I wonder if this was a factor in the Red Sox retaining their original City Connect as a “standard” alternate next year as I’d imagine they’d expect to wear that in the postseason eventually.
Nice picture Chris, I forgot all about the Giants red socks from 1976. I would go with Sept 19, 1976 against the Eagles
I feel like the player names will be almost impossible to read from any distance. I showed this to my kid, a 2023 Texas Tech grad and was told it’s “stupid.”
Yes, the Tech uni is dumb. (BSME 1989) Just when I had said there was no bad combo in this new uni set – it is the same design as all of our unis except the large TECH (also dumb). But no adidias vs UA can prevent one stupid uni combo designed for 17 year old boys. Fortunately we won’t be wearing it very often. And LOADS better than any usual gray crap we ever received from UA. The tie-in with Mahomes would usually be an eye-roller for me. But not with this one because of the connection to the university and the whole tape thing was just epic, the teasers – the day we realized we were going to get to dump UA for adidas was glorious. The big adidas reveal on July 1 had an image of the field with the Double T flanked by an adidas logo and the Mahomes gladiator logo. It raised an eyebrow for me especially with all the bs selling ads on unis and fields – but I was less offended by the idea of it because of Mahomes. But we haven’t seen that yet.