Good morning, Uni Watchers, and a Happy Humpday to all.
I’m joined once again by KC Smurthwaite, who you may remember was instrumental in setting up the Uni Watch/U of Hawaii Basketball Design Contest, and who also penned a guest article for Uni Watch on “brand police” back in early October. KC returns today with a insider look at fanbase reaction to uniforms and uniform design.
You can follow KC on TwitterX @KcSmurthwaite.
Here’s KC…
by KC Smurthwaite
The fan base either loves them or hates them.
I hate to break it to you—that’s part of the plan. Any good marketer, especially in sports, doesn’t want you to glance at the jerseys and mutter, “Oh, that’s nice.”
More importantly, I see weekly, if not daily, posts about jersey reveals for [insert university here], and I go straight to the comments. Without fail, someone blames the apparel provider—Nike, Under Armour, New Balance, or Adidas—for “screwing the fans over” or showing “no creativity.” My personal favorite: “I wish we were with [insert dream brand here].” I even had a student in one of my classes at Utah State University ask me why “NIKE hates the Aggies.”
Sometimes, fans even slam helmet decals for being lazy or uninspired (more on that later).
Here’s the thing—90% of the time, it’s not the apparel provider’s fault. It’s your own people. Your athletic department. Maybe even your trademark and licensing office, as you might’ve picked up from my last post.
Let’s clear something up: companies like Adidas, Nike, and Under Armour care, but they aren’t on 24/7 customer service with your school unless you’re a top power-four or name-brand mid-major or a service academy. These folks in college relations or marketing roles are some of the hardest working in the industry. For most schools, our apparel friends just provide annual templates.
Think of it like ordering from a menu—you get 24 possible combinations planned six to nine months ahead of the season. Sure, you can still have customization as you get closer to the season, but those templates become limited, and you might face a surcharge. (Don’t ask me which template is the most user-friendly…)
So, what about those crazy one-off jerseys we see occasionally? Most are special cases, like theme nights, rivalry games, a promotion to push an apparel initiative or one-game stunts. And even then, there are hurdles: NCAA rules (which are more like guidelines, honestly), conference approvals, and sometimes flat-out rejections from the apparel provider to avoid headaches (usually just because you are trying to skirt around the uniform guidelines).
If your school wants to go bold—minor league baseball bold—it requires foresight. Athletic departments must plan theme nights and jersey designs for the upcoming football season in February or March. Even then, approvals from licensing, trademarks, and marketing take time. Schools also don’t want to upset their apparel providers with extravagant requests, who are giving them hefty sponsorship deals, for the sake of a jersey that might only be worn twice.
But hey, we can always blame the apparel company, right?
Let’s pivot to decals—Western Kentucky deserves major props for what they’ve done here. WKU is on a generational run for branding and marketing. They leaned into their brand and went all-in, swapping decals to align with theme nights and special games.
This trend is gaining traction because it’s affordable, fun, and gives fans something new to cheer about.
Side note in all of this, April Fools’ is the best day to try out crazy brand ideas. (How it started vs. How it ended.)
Additionally, putting on my consulting hat—it impacts revenue across the board. Theme nights attract attendees, jerseys can be auctioned for revenue, the bookstore thrives on limited-edition gear, and if executed well, it’s the same gear the coaches and players wear that night. Plus, after a successful run, corporate partners often want to join in and be part of the excitement.
I even pitched this idea to former UH Athletic Director Craig Angelos, suggesting UH try something similar every game for 2025. He was all in—he didn’t even let me finish the sentence. The plan was to employ a new decal every game and at least three special edition uniforms throughout the year. This was in addition to a regular home-and-away combination. Think retro, faux back, and code name, “Hawaiian Hulk.”
We wanted to test it out for the Military Appreciation Game, just with the decals, but there were concerns: Would the equipment staff manage the quick turnaround? Would fans notice? There was also a lot of, “why are we even doing this?” So, the football decal litmus test happened.
Spoiler alert: They noticed. On social media, the reaction was all over the map, both positive and negatively. Remember what I said earlier about marketing? The goal is to provoke an emotional response.
Check.
To bring it back full circle: Your jerseys don’t suck because of Under Armour, Nike, Adidas, or whoever. They suck because planning didn’t happen—or at least, not far enough in advance. With proper coordination, schools can have elite jerseys, creative helmet decals, and theme nights that boost attendance, engagement, and revenue.
Your jerseys don’t suck. Your strategy does.
Checkmate.
Fire away!
GTGFU: 9/08/02 Arizona Cardinals @ Seattle Seahawks 23-31.
Those 90s Cards road jerseys aged well imho. I’m glad they did something similar in their redesign even though they botched the home with the blood clot.
Wrong game – Arizona wore red pants that game – and wrong score (that’s the result from the Cards’ Week 1 loss against Washington – the Seattle game was a 24-13 win).
Was just thinking looking at that photo how fantastic those Cardinals uniforms were.
Woops yea total brain fart
This headline brings up one of my biggest sports pet peeves. Fans using terms like “we”, “us”, and “our” in when referring to their favorite teams. Unless you are on the team or in the organization there is no “we”, you are not a part of anything. You’re nothing more than a customer consuming a product, a part of nothing. You don’t go to McDonald’s and say “I’m proud of us, we really killed it on the Big Mac today!”
My biggest pet peeve in sports are the fan police, like yourself.
Dude, that’s not how fandom works. It’s okay to say “us” when referring to your team. We celebrate the wins and are sad for the losses. Sports matter to people and it’s okay to feel apart of the team. It’s lame to dictate how someone can feel towards their team. Players come and go, but the thing that stays are the fans. Most root for the jersey over the players, and have a deep connection to their city or team. I truly don’t understand this stance as it impacts no one when someone uses the words “we” or “us” or whatever. You don’t have to enjoy when someone talks like this, but I don’t understand the hate towards it…. but we are commenting on an article about fans hating things, so maybe its fitting!
What a freezing cold take. Never understood this stance at all, still don’t.
Doesnt being part of a community warrant the use of “we”
My biggest pet peeve is people who dont think things through
Nope,”we” are not making decisions and “we” have little to no input. You are a consumer of a product to those billion dollar businesses. Now using “we” in reference to the fanbase is fine, but there is no “we” when mentioning the franchise.
doubling down on this nonsense take, bold strategy
Then why even care about sports at all?
I’ll add in, from something I was told early on in my collegiate athletics career.
Alumni are part of the university. Donors are investors in the success. Fans, at some point and in some way, “contribute financially” to the well-being of the school. They are on the team!
I’m sure in the minority here, but I’m with you. I worked for an NFL team for many years (and have been featured in this space as part of that previous employment), and it has always irked me when fans refer to their teams as “we” or “us” or “our.” Fans aren’t part of the team, they root for the team. In order to say “we,” you need a real, measurable, direct stake in the team’s performance, and the ruining of a day or the feeling of money wasted on merchandise or tickets does not count. For fans of professional sports, it’s entirely absurd (and delusional) to think that fans are part of the team’s machine. For students and alums of a particular university, it’s a little different because they’re part of the fabric of the institution, but there are still some degrees of separation there. But if you root for a college team for a college you didn’t attend, it’s the same as a professional team you aren’t employed by.
Here’s a revelation: professional sports team owners and management don’t care about the fans. At all. They care about money, wins, losses, and press coverage (in varying order depending on the franchise). They see the fans as ATMs and nothing more. If you disappear tomorrow, the team will go on without so much as a second thought because you’re replaceable. You mean nothing to them. You don’t get a bonus when the team makes the playoffs, you don’t get a ring when the team wins a championship, you aren’t on the payroll, you get any say in the organizational direction of the team, and you aren’t allowed in the team facility.
Teams make changes make organizational changes when they aren’t successful because success equals money. Teams make aesthetic changes to make money. If those aesthetic changes aren’t making money, they make another one to make money, not to please a hoard of nameless faceless fans. “Fan outreach” and “fan events” are solely to keep the money coming in and to make new fans through the mirage of connection, not because they actually give a single care about fans other than their ability to open their wallets. There is no “us,” it’s “them.”
This delusional stance of fans being part of the team is absurd and frankly, juvenile. The team doesn’t care about you…at all. You aren’t part of it..at all. Does this stop me from rooting for or following my favorite teams? Of course not. I want the teams I root for to do well because I love the games. But having been on the inside though, I know that what happens on the field has absolutely zero bearing on my life anymore. If the team loses, I go about my day knowing it had absolutely nothing to do with me. If the team wins, I feel great for a bit and then go about my day knowing it had absolutely nothing to do with me.
Who care’s about owners and what they think? I love my teams and feel apart of them no matter what some dork on the internet says. I love when they win and hate when they lose – even though I don’t let it ruin my day! What a weird take to come to a sports website and tell sport’s fan how to talk about their teams, you boys sound fun to hang out with….
I always get a kick out of reading people bloviate, no matter their position, who can’t tell a possessive from a plural and claim a togetherness with a team by using the word “apart”.
Always entertaining. Thanks for the chuckles.
Barrell Man has a statue at Empower Field so seems like owners do care about fans.
That’s a pet peeve of mine too, although I use “we” for my alma mater (yes it’s arbitrary). I don’t mind an occasional “we” when the context makes sense but I hate the way it sounds when people use it as their default pronoun for pro teams (“we traded for Soto,” “we signed Rodon,” etc.). It just sounds some combination of tacky and uneducated to me. Like lowest common denominator sports radio caller who gets most of his NFL opinions from Madden and Stephen A Smith.
Before anyone gets mad, aren’t idiosyncratic, arbitrary preferences on trivial issues that 99 percent of people don’t think about one of the things that make Uni Watch great? I’m a faceless, internet rando, you all can say do and say as you please!
That’s a very strange take. The entire point of being a fan of something is feeling you belong to it, that you identify with it.
I understand not liking the phrase in every use. At times, I intentionally don’t use we/us, and other times it comes out naturally. It’s really not a big deal though. But if you think those phrases have no place in fandom, you probably don’t understand why sports are what they are. Using we/us doesn’t mean someone has delusions that they are something more than a fan. And in one sense, at the pro level, fans are largely customers. But they are also more than that. It doesn’t make me or anyone else naive to believe that. I’m well aware of businesses and their goal to make money. The people running the team/business may even have contempt for fans. But that’s their problem to deal with. I don’t have to change my attitude or language to conform to their perspective. The owner/gm/players can love me, hate me, be ambivalent about me, whatever. I can’t control that. But I can root, root, root, for the home team if I want and use we/us if I want because on some level, albeit a different level than the players on the field, we’re all on the ride together. I may not play, but I’ve been cheering for the team longer than most of the players have been alive. Not to mention they’re usually coming from a different hometown and are probably not staying here long term and probably have minimal regard for the long-term success of the club beyond their playing years. So, if you think about it, ultimately they’re just employees in your model. They probably shouldn’t use we/us either. They have no real ownership stake in the legal sense. But they do have some investment. As do I. As do the other fans. Again, we’re all, in some way, on the ride together. They have their place on the field/court for a few years of their life and I have mine in the stands or on my couch for multiple decades. We all have a role.
And finally, you say McDonald’s customers aren’t part of the team, but when you’re at Olive Garden, you’re family. So go get some soup, salad, and breadsticks, have a good time, and don’t stress about people loving their role as fans enough to count themselves a part of the team.
To me, it is a sliding scale.
There are many supporters who go home and away. A phrase like “We have got Ipswich away in the cup” literally means you will get in your car to go to Ipswich for the game and sit in your end.
So in that sense, “We” is acceptable.
Then, there are many supporters who have never seen their team live. Have never even travelled to the City they are in. You come across Liverpool supporters everywhere in this country, and hear them use the term “We” and it sounds so stupid.
I’m somewhere in the middle, but how can you determine where to draw the line and say to people who can use “We” and who can’t???
And the other thing is that this is how fans interact with each other. In an office like mine, you have fans of all sorts of clubs – and people ask about your team. e.g. Who have you got next?, how did you play? etc. To many people, they see Leicester City and think of me, so in their heads, me and Leicester City are entwined. They know I’ll have a story about the game or the team selection, whether I was at the game or not. So by that logic, if the club and me are viewed as the same by other people, then why not allow the word We.
It is a narrow view to think that terms has to apply to the players, owners and staff only – even though I agree it can stretch the imagination when used by some people!
Yes !
Thank you.
You know who rarely uses the word “we”?
ACTUAL professional athletes.
You rarely ever hear former players say “we”.
My conclusion, is that people (Like Michael), are fat, unathletic, and never been on a team (Beer league doesn’t count).
Using the word “we”, is the only way they feel good about themselves.
Agreed completely. At the end of the day, we’re simply customers. “We”, “you”, “us”, etc., serve no purposes other than 1) make things personal and escalate arguments between fans (whether intentional or not, it’s inarguable that “we”, “I”, “you”, etc. cause things to get personal), and 2) allow people to pretend that they’re part of the team (like playing dress-up in their jerseys) and live out their fantasies. It’s all silly. We just root for different branches of the same bank.
Interesting article, KC. Thanks for the insight. And I think the point we often overlook is that we blame Nike, adidas, UA and whoever else, myself included. But there are tollbooths at the university level that allow this to happen.
Meanwhile, to the UW admins: I get that you need ads for revenue and I respect that. But can we exercise a little discretion and restraint? The JBL ad (I call them out not because their ad is effective but to identify the most egregious offender) takes up almost half my screen. At one point, I had 4 ads and 4 lines of text. It was a good article and it was largely obscured because of ad copy. Including the one that moves the margins in from the sides. I’m all for ad revenue to keep UW up and running but it’s out of hand today. Thanks for listening.
Regarding the ads, as a UW+ member I don’t normally get them, so I checked the page in Incognito Mode (since my login doesn’t carry over in that mode) and… yeah, the inline ads are brutally arranged. Sometimes there’s a long section of the article between ads, then there are several ads in succession with just a couple of lines between them. And I’m sure it’s all automated, with zero human thought put into it at all.
Yes, exactly. Very fitting from my last post on here about the gatekeepers on campus. I’ve done contract work for private, public, non-profit (true non-profits) and in Higher Education. HigherEd is the slowest… by a mile.
Alignment with the president, athletic director, and campus community is a massive way to get things done! Thanks for reading!
Loved this article! Hopefully now the comments can stop with the “Nike is the worst” “Mark of the beast” stuff.
But of someone feels “Nike is the worst” why would they stop making that comment?
You hope people being sovereign individuals with their own thoughts stop?
Weird.
Thanks, Skott!
I didn’t want to add into the article (on purpose), but I’ll say in the comments. I definitely have my apparel company preferences when it comes to what I wear vs. who is the easiest to work with on designs or projects!
GTGFTU: Week 16, 2003, December 21st; Seattle 28, Arizona 10 at then-Seahawks Stadium. It was the only time the Cards wore white-over-white in their 1996-2004 uniforms against Seattle’s mono-desaturated blues.
GTGFTS – August 16, 1953 New York Yankees defeat the Philadelphia Athletics 7-3 to sweep a Sunday doubleheader at Connie Mack Stadium (formerly Shibe Park). Yankees would go on to sweep another doubleheader against the Athletics the next day as well, ultimately taking four games of the five game series. Yankees starter Allie Reynolds only made it thru one inning, giving up two runs, but reliever Johnny Sain would pitch the final 8 innings to earn the win.
This is a great take, and makes me think that the real issue (at least in pro sports) is oversaturation–every team constantly pushing out alternates, tweaking the design, etc, etc… in the name of selling more gear. On the one hand, I admit to collecting baseball hats and enjoying the aesthetics of athletics (or why would I be here?), but when teams are constantly churning out new gear in order to drive sales or even just make a splash, it’s inevitably leads to bad, sloppy design. It’s also wasteful–European soccer teams at the top level get three new kits every season, and fans are encouraged to buy a new shirt EVERY YEAR to help support their club’s pursuit of new player salaries. It’s become too much.
Yeah, you can tell the money grabs from the actual strategic moves.
I love, LOVE the Copa de la Diversion in MiLB, but it has gotten way too out of hand.
I don’t understand the conclusion “Your jerseys don’t suck because of Under Armour, Nike, Adidas, or whoever. They suck because planning didn’t happen.” The evidence against this statement is right there in the article – the companies offer a limited menu and don’t cater to the schools (usually). There are a whole host of complaints that lead straight to the company and that no amount of “planning” can fix: the company’s color palette doesn’t match your school color, you hate the adidas shrink-wrapped jersey look, you don’t like truncated shoulder stripes, etc.
Hi CW!
In the middle of the article… “If your school wants to go bold—minor league baseball bold—it requires foresight. Athletic departments must plan theme nights and jersey designs for the upcoming football season in February or March. Even then, approvals from licensing, trademarks, and marketing take time.”
It’s easy to do custom and fun things. It just takes time, and it doesn’t cost that much more if it’s ordered on time (aka, early). It’s sometimes $0 or a $5 per unit surcharge.
I think it makes more sense when you posit the conclusion in the context of what it “does” rather than what it “says.”
In this case, the point is to troll the reader and get a reaction by being incendiary, which is also the basic maxim of marketing that is celebrated in the article.
What’s funny is that most of these examples use Mississippi State, which just changed the main logo they use for sports to a script one that fans had been wanting and now they have been absolutely terrible with it. I can see clamoring to go back to their usual logo that was associated with better times.
But related to that is now that they’re not playing well, Adidas is going to be less likely to go along with many special requests since I’m sure merch sales are down. So instead of getting the treatment better schools get, they’ll just get the bare bones options (at least from an SEC perspective).
Sacha, you bring up a unique point… down the road if Phil will have me back… there are some very unique clauses in some of these contracts. From NIKE/Adi/UA designing a secondary alternate (a dying breed) to providing a fully paid internship at HQ for a student-athlete.
It gets awkward when a former logo or design that a different apparel partner did…. can’t be replicated because they are with somebody new!
That’s where foresight comes in. If State U. Had been clever enough to require their former uniform supplier to sign over the rights to the logo/design in question, they can take it along with their current uniform partner. Or create it themselves in the first place.
I’m a WKU alum and really appreciate the shout-out from KC! The marketing of the Big Red mascot has really snowballed over the past 2 decades, especially since he (it?) was featured in a few ESPN promos. And now they’re using BR on helmets in various “action poses” depending on the player as well as just using BR’s eyes on the helmet as you’ve shown here. And he’s painted on the field, on rally towels and throughout the university showing more creativity at least on the helmets than with the Nike basic template uniforms. Before going toes-up, Russell Athletic had FAR more creative unis (I have a couple of game-used ones) and I wish some of those ideas would rub off on WKU’s Nike deal. Unfortunately, BR uni fun is wasted on one of the most apathetic fan bases in all of D-1 football/basketball. WKU struggles to get 10-15,000 for a football home game (barely 6500 for senior day) or 3-4000 for a home hoops game. This needs to change. I lived in Bowling Green for 4 years & still have family in BG I visit regularly–there ain’t that many entertainment choices!
Another KC post, another great post about how things actually work.
It’s worth noting that from a Uni Watch perspective, there are aesthetic differences between templates offered by the different outfitters and some look a lot better than others. In football, Adidas usually has those brutal templates with the top part of the jersey and nameplate being very stretched-out and contorted and there being no discrete “collar” area. UA has some bad templates as well, particularly the pants with the stripes that go across the front above the knee (Kent State for example), and their numbers also run small. Despite being the most maligned on this site historically, I actually think Nike has the best templates of the Big 3.
Just read this comment after posting mine. Totally agree!
Out of curiosity i looked up Andrew Brown’s X account, he’s a very angry person.
Just one Vet’s opinion.
Military appreciation (adding camo to your color scheme) or having coaches wearing hats/sweatshirts with camo and “tabs” just comes across as meaningless pandering.
Why yes, yes they do suck
I’m holding fast to jerseys sucking because the templates offered by these companies sometimes suck. I’m partial to disliking Under Armour, for instance. Unless you’re telling me they can offer lease sucky/non-excess-piping templates? Lol. Overall, this is a GREAT piece and I thank you for offering it up. Great info!
What about when two schools with the same uniform manufacturer play against each other, and then the teams wear unique uniforms for that game alone? The example that comes to mind is Wisconsin vs Northwestern wearing special uniforms for their annual (before B1G expansion) matchup specifically because both are Under Armour schools.
I strongly dislike the stretchy look of Adidas uniforms, and that is not specific to any one university.