[Editor’s Note: This morning our own Anthony Emerson is back with Part II of a new year-end feature: The 2024 Uni Watch Uni Awards. Anthony has tallied your nominees in the “New Primary Uni” category, and today you can vote for your top 3 “best” and “worst” new uniforms. — PH]
• • • • • 2024 Uni Awards: Best and Worst New Primary Uni Nominees
by Anthony EmersonPolls are at the bottom of each section. The nominees are…
Best of 2024
Detroit Lions, home and away
Let’s ignore the one uni to our left and focus on the home and away numbers here: utter perfection. Exactly what all of us picture in our heads when we imagine a Detroit Lions uniform, and a massive upgrade over what the team was previously wearing.
New York Yankees away
Such a simple change, yet a perfect one — it makes you wonder why the old unis stuck around for 50 years.
Los Angeles Kings
A big theme this year seems to be teams returning to slightly updated looks they never should’ve left behind. The Kings here exemplify that perfectly.
New York Jets Home and Away
Again, let’s ignore the black uni and focus on the new primaries, with the Jets effectively bringing back largely unchanged the New York Sack Exchange-era unis. Another massive step up over what the team was previously wearing.Newcastle United away
A (very slightly) modernized take on the legendary 1995-96 Newcastle away kit, Newcastle fans are happy to see the return of maroon and blue when the Magpies are away from St James’ Park.Denver Broncos
The Broncos are one of the few nominees for this category that’s a wholly new take on their identity, not just an update on a previous identity.
FC Versailles
Versailles, who compete in the French third division, dropped this absolute beauty of an away kit out of basically nowhere.
Carolina Ascent
Utterly gorgeous. This kit evokes a sunset over the Carolina Appalachians, and I’m not sure how the expansion team is going to top it next year.
Manchester City away
Another classic updated for today, Manchester City’s away kit for this season is inspired by the team’s 1998-99 away kit.
Anaheim Ducks
Some people are disappointed that eggplant and emerald haven’t returned, but I think the Ducks’ new unis and they’re a good synthesis of both Ducks eras.
Worst of 2024
Chelsea FC home
Chelsea’s home kit this year is a good microcosm of how Nike has been lapped by Adidas, Puma, Kappa, Hummel, Umbro…pretty much any other major soccer kit manufacturer. Very weird, very unattractive.Minnesota Frost (home and away)
With such a clunker of a logo, the Frost would’ve really benefited from some nice unis. Unfortunately, the team is burdened with utterly generic unis as well.
Paris Saint-Germain away
The first time I saw this, I did wonder why PSG had a giant A on their kit. Then I realized that it wasn’t the letter A — it was just the worst rendering of the Eiffel Tower I’ve ever seen.
Los Angeles Clippers “association” and “icon”
I gotta be honest, I actually really like these, but multiple people nominated them for worst primary uniforms, and no one nominated them for best. So maybe I’m the only one who likes them.
Ottawa Charge home and away
Another PWHL team with a really bad logo, but while the Frost simply had boring unis, the Charge cross over into downright ugly territory, with two different shades of grey.Houston Texans Home and Away
The Texans’ primary home and away uniforms are drab and forgettable, complete with ugly number fonts and and odd pants striping.
Sporting CP home
Sporting have traditionally worn green-and-white hoops, but they’ve gone BFBS this year. The results are disastrous for one of Portugal’s most historic and iconic clubs.
Washintgon Nationals Away
An unbelievable downgrade from the Nats’ previous road set, these look like jerseys from a made-for-TV movie about baseball that couldn’t get the MLB license.
TSV Hartberg home
This Austrian Bundesliga team features twelve ads on the front of the jersey (including for “#1 Spermbooster”) and five more on the back. I wonder when Hartberg is going to force players to wear long sleeves in order to cover them with ads, too.
Utah HC home and away
The NHL lost one of their best looks when the Coyotes decamped for Salt Lake City, and the “placeholder” identity of the Utah Hockey Club was one of the most frequently nominated looks for both “worst primary uniforms” and “worst logo.”
I gotta be honest,
At the end of the article it says, “I gotta be honest” but there’s nothing after that.
“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”?
Broncos photo is not showing up for me.
I can’t believe people nominated the Clippers set for worst. I wouldn’t put them among the best, mind you, but they’re vast improvements over the previous set.
Seems like an incomplete article. The “I gotta be honest” part, no Denver Broncos photo and the syntax on the Anaheim Ducks entry.
I agree with Rob about the Clippers. They’re not horrible, just kinda meh. Seems like a lot of whute space on that jersey. Maybe make the numbers larger and centered? I don’t even recall coverage of that new uniform here.
I was going to vote for Natinals as worst jersey until I saw whatever that is one slot below. A pro athlete should be embarrassed to wear that.
The margins are running off of the screen both left and right, rendering this article totally unreadable on my phone.
I had to switch to desktop view on my phone’s browser to be able to see it all and vote (my work computer’s blocking the voting links).
Same here. I had to use my laptop to read anything. And then when I get here I get a pop-up virus scam and I have to close the tab. Happens every time on this website only. Very frustrating all the way around.
Apologies.
I believe it’s fixed now. Try refreshing and see if everything “fits” now.
I don’t think the Lions were that great. An improvement, but not amazing. Their throwback is actually amazing.
I voted for the LA kings, that return to the 90s is perfect. I also thought the new Ducks set was a good compromise between embracing the past but also keeping with their Orange County honoring color palette.
On the worst side, as a Chelsea supporter I completely agree. It’s been a string of terrible kits for them but, if Footy Headlines is accurate, finally looking up for next season for the first time in like, 4 years. The home shirt will use just the lion as the badge, while the third shirt will be black and silver with a throw back 90s logo on the Nike Total 90 template. Both look really good in the mock ups.
On the flip side, the Clippers unis were an improvement, not bad. I also actually like those PSG shirts, which btw they’re carrying over to next season too (a rarity in European football).
The Frost logo and colors are great. Dissing their uniforms seems unfair considering the entire league has the same template.
Utah’s inclusion also seems unfair considering they’re current logo and uniforms are temporary.
Utah and the Frost are just bland, not bad.
Some of this feels like the Razzies, where they’ll say the “worst movie of the year” is Catwoman, and obviously if you watched every movie that was made and released that year there are WAY worse movies, but for the sake of making things easy, they only nominate things that A) most people are aware of and B) will get people to say “oh yeah that one sucks, haha” rather than “I’ve never heard of any of these, this is boring”.
Agreed on both counts.
Agreed with John, that is.
I’m still going with MLB as a whole for the clown show that was the transition to its 2024 uniform template
I second that! THE WORST!!!
Third.
Ban Nike from baseball!
I was hoping for a better Minnesota logo and design as they would be my chosen team in that league. The Ottawa sweater is not good, either. BUT I would have nominated the Montreal sweater for Best of 2024; their logo is really cool and tops the entire league, thus far.
I gotta be honest,
I totally disagree with the Yankees away nomination – they look like practice jerseys.
Thanks for the truth bomb! Understand the love for yankees home uni, but baffled by how others can like the boring among worst in MLB road uni.
A lot of these are straight outta of the “get off my lawn” playbook. The lions offered a noticeable improvement over the previous set, yes, but that wasn’t hard, and when seen in person the sleeve stripes come off as cheap and chintzy and just smack of lazy execution. Yes they are a great improvement but they should not be up for best unis. Especially since they never wear the set getting the nod here. The Yankees? That has to be a joke. If Toyota leaves the Tacoma exactly the same other than offering a chrome grille as an option they haven’t redesigned anything. Is the Yankees tweak an improvement? I won’t even hazard an opinion. I know we parse the most minute details here but this uniform isn’t among the top uniforms with or without the stroke on the word mark. It’s boring. It just has “tradition” on its side. Don’t tell me the Nats making their roadie boring is the worst but a traditionally boring roadie made even more boring is one of the best. The clips don’t belong on here, although somehow they’ve made their “Clipart” era look interesting, and their total redesign neither feels like a modern or classic basketball team, nor a professional anything team to be honest, it’s simply not one of the worst. Now not everything has to be the broncos (who do deserve a nom for best, I think), and to be fair, I don’t follow soccer, so I look at some of these and whole heartedly agree then read the description to find out they have also slightly tweaked an existing design, so my vote will ultimately be flawed by my own logic. But again, the kings haven’t done anything special, and the ducks are right on the razor’s edge of having done nothing special. The jets had perfectly fine unis, and I feel that they got unfairly pooped on because they used lots of black, and they are a poop team. They made them boring, kept the BFBS, and then swapped the helmet logo when the frumpy football arched logo makes way more sense for a frumpy two sleeve stripe design, while the sharp italic flying jet logo would have been a perfect fit for the old set. Meh. It’s all just… like… my opinion, man.
Seinfeld famously said that we’re just rooting for laundry and Uni Watch takes it one step further by focusing on the laundry of our youth rather than the laundry out on the field today. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as they say, but it is a bit disingenuous to laud the Sack Exchange unis today when nobody seemed to like them back when they were introduced in the ’80s. Were we wrong then or are we wrong today? Probably neither; we just grew up with those so we miss them. And now we love them because they’re back. But that really isn’t anything about those unis per se.
I should have said “praising” rather than “focusing,” as obviously the site focuses on current unis. Sorry for the mistake.
In order to be productive and not just a whiner, I should suggest that maybe next year when you do this (and you should!), there should be categories for most improved, best retro look (so as not to confine the category to strictly accurate throwbacks), and maybe a “best return to form” (for teams that recapture their “look” but don’t necessarily go to a strict throwback look), I think the lions could easily fit in the most improved or best return to form, while the yanks could fit in the best retro look, despite me not thinking they belong in the best overall.
“The NHL lost one of their best looks when the Coyotes decamped for Salt Lake City…”
YVVM for sure.
The Kachina logo was nice enough, but their sets which included that were kinda busy… and the coyote head era was bland at best. Shoulda kept the Jets branding IMO.
The Lions need an asterisk. The unis as pictured are good, but since they refuse to wear them as pictured, the look they’ve presented on the field has been far worse.
YEP, can a uni be classified as primary when the 2 pictured home and road have been worn a combined total of exactly once during the regular season? Looks like the 2 primaries should be blueberry and the white jersey/pants in which case it would be closer to worst nominee than best nominee.
Most of the “worst” unis aren’t too bad, just uninspired. Minnesota, Ottawa, and Utah are all just kinda meh, although all their logos are pretty bad. As much as I hate ads on uniforms, I hesitate to punish a small team for having a lot of them on their unis. The Hartberg one is overkill, but you could put any number of small soccer teams from around the world in that category.
The “best” is tough to choose. There were a lot of quality uniforms unveiled this year, something that can’t be said too often. I just wish the Lions had stripes on their blue and white pants, or just wore their grey pants all the time.
I think the nomination for Worst on the Utah HC uniforms is misplaced. I also personally love the Broncos new set but the fact is that most folks don’t care for them – especially Broncos fans who highly prefer the throwback (of course I know this is just my own perception, but I believe it to be accurate.) So I think a nomination for Best is a bit much.
I like the Utah unis but hate the logo. Whatever, I guess they’ll adopt an actual name soon enough
I feel like soccer is needs to be a separate category. Uni-Watchers seems to focus on the North American teams and leagues, so soccer (ahem football) jerseys (ahem kits) from across the pond operate in a different market dynamic where egregiously large ads (ahem sponsors) have a different level of acceptance. Most clubs modify kits every year so a few changes to the hoops or tonal patterns won’t stick around long no matter if they’re loved or hated. Additionally, TSV Hartberg competes in the Austrian Bundesliga, which is the equivalent of a double A baseball team in America. I still hate everything about their kit, but putting them on this list is a cop-out to the real uniform offenders that spend actual time and money on re-branding that completely misses the mark.
I agree. In part due to ads taking up much more space on the uniforms, as well as the crest on the chest vs a larger word mark or logo as is commonplace in North American sports, but also because they get new uniforms every year (or in come rare cases every other year) as opposed to the NFL where teams have to wait at least 5 years for a new uniform. Soccer kits aren’t designed to last more than 1 or 2 years, and are more susceptible to trends and being less “traditional.”
we know UHC is a placeholder name. Not fair to put it on the list. Actually amazing what they did in a few short months.
Would be better to have a Most Improved award, so there is at least a comparison point. In an article like this where the comparison is the universe, it feels like the selections are all over the place. Also, tons of sites do favorite lists, so I’d expect something more for UW, such as some choices with critique of new versus old.
I like this contest. Buggy, sure. Challenge to compare across sports, of course.
But, as a way to engage our community, this is great!!
Of course refinements can be made, but l look forward to more of this.
Given the subjective nature of athletics aesthetics, it might be great to have some rankings based on community input rather than one person’s opinion.
Another suggestion for next year: add categories for “minor leagues” and college. College football might prove to be a real bear, and honestly so could minor league baseball, but someone here pointed out that one of the soccer teams plays in a low level league, which doesn’t mean the unis don’t fit the bill but it does blow the debate wide open. I imagine that eventually, if this piece runs long enough, there will be categorized bests and worsts for each sport, which would make things easier.
Football also creates a bit of a wrinkle in the awards, as many have pointed out regarding the lions: teams present certain sets as their primaries and alts but then mix and match as they see fit. Maybe football needs a subcategory for “game worn” sets, or just make that a consideration for a “best overall wardrobe” award.
TVS Hartberg….I think I threw up. Is this a kit that a follower of TVS Hartberg will buy? Or is it without all the ads?
I voted best as Carolina Ascent because it’s the best execution of a newer element (gradients) that often gets hated on, rather than a return to a classic element.
Worst has to be TSV Billboards- er, Hartburg.
That Carolina Ascent kit is absolute fire.
These are a joke. Did you also shut off voting as soon as you got the results you wanted lol