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Miami Heat Bringing Back Original “Vice” Uniforms for Remainder of 2024-25 season

Big uniform news out of Miami today as the Miami Heat announced they will wear the original white Miami Vice jersey from the 2018-19 season in place of their current “Association” white uniforms. They are scheduled to wear the Vice jerseys for 10 home games this season, beginning with their Friday, February 17 home game against the Denver Nuggets. They’ll also be worn on the road.

The original Miami Vice uniforms were extremely popular with players and fans — originally created as the team’s “City Edition” — so they were designed to be only worn for one season. But they proved so popular that the team went on to create four more “Vice” uniforms in different colors, eventually morphing into a final season multi-color gradient that probably should have been best left not worn.

Not shown in the sequence above is a fuchsia version.

So, why the switch to bring these back for the rest of the season? And how did the Heat convince the NBA to allow them to return to this uniform?

According to this article, “The Heat are the only team in the NBA that has been granted the ability to bring back a previous City Edition jersey. The organization lobbied Nike and the league, citing the campaign’s popularity and lucrativeness.”

At least the team was honest — it’s in no small part about the money. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t great news. I’ve felt the original Vice uniforms were the best the team has ever worn, and honestly should have become the team’s default uniform. But as a City Edition, that was never part of the plan.

The unprecedented move by the Heat means that the team will wear the Vice uniforms, on the road and at home, any time they were previously scheduled to wear their standard white “Association” uniforms. So that means they’ll be worn 20 times.

For those who like great looking uniforms, the news gets even better. The Heat this year introduced what may be the worst City Edition uniform yet (“Heat CULTURE”) — though that is debatable. The team probably realized how crummy those uniforms are, and they will not be worn again this year (and hopefully ever). The team purposely scheduled all their “Culture” games for the first half of the season, in preparation for the return of the Vice uniforms.

Give me these every day and twice on Sunday.

The Heat have “sold over 2.3 million units of Vice for over $40 million in Vice-based merchandise (jerseys, shorts, shirts, hats, etc.), which make up around 40% of total retail revenue.” But it’s also a fantastic uniform, so in this instance, I’m actually happy money was the driving factor in a uniform decision.

While the announcement comes as a surprise, this return to the original Vice was put into motion by the team a while ago.

“These uniform plans are seeded years in advance,” Heat Executive Vice President and Chief Marking Officer Michael McCullough said of the timing. “When we made the schedule and see the schedule and we start to plot out dates for release, those are scheduled in August. There are a lot of machinations that are at work here. And it’s not just the Heat, we have national and international retailers who are also part of this program. So once the wheels start turning on something like this, you really can’t stop it.”

As I said, I loved these when they were first introduced and am ecstatic about their return. Even if it’s all about the bottom line.

Your thoughts?

 
  
 
Comments (26)

    I’ll say the line “Make these permanent!” For crying out loud, they gone through more less all the permutations of this uniform, Clearly they’ve got branding down. Anecdotally as a Floridian, the “Vice” popular enough that you can get Miami Heat License plate in this style.

    I’ll admit that I’m not a Miami Heat fan though. To Heat fans, is there some great love of the existing branding that I’m unaware of that would make the organization reticent to jump ship? Admittedly they’ve had plenty of success with their current branding though.

    I have the same question, would love a poll of heat fans. I get that the core look is associated with titles (always hard to overcome, but eventually happens like with the Pats) but this identity seems way more ownable. As key a franchise as Miami is, having a more expressive identity feels like it could make them look more iconic. And I’m all for teams having unique colors that are ownable to them

    A rare instance of the market and aesthetics being in agreement about the superiority of this uniform. Miami and neon: Perfect together.

    Just a note, the uni’s debut is tomorrow, Jan 17.

    Personally I love these as an alternate and wish we could see all four versions of them all the time. But I also really like their regular black/white/red look and acknowledge all the history those carry. So they have seven uniforms I’d like to see consistently (lol). Which makes the past four years of dreary City Editions that much worse.

    I agree. All the Heat’s uniforms are pretty nice. I’ve honestly always been in favor of have as many uniforms as you want if they truly look good, who cares? Obviously not 32 different uniforms, but I’d say the 7 you mention for Miami is about the limit. Maybe throw in a throwback to the 90s as well.

    The heat need to change to these full time, maybe with a black one with the HEAT word mark too since that is so much better than the current black MIAMI ones.

    This is not only the best look the Heat has (now and historically), it’s one of the best unis in basketball, arguably THE best. This should be their look and, for my money, the link should be the primary color uni, with blue or black as a third. If they wanted to mix/spice things up, both FIU and UofM have shown that a palm leaf/tree motif could work as a side panel or adornment on the shorts, and if they wanted to compromise for traditionalists, it wouldn’t hurt the design to dot the i’s with small flames.

    This gives me hope the Sixers will be able to make their Spectrum uniforms their full time at some point, too. Excellent move by the Heat, would love to see them incorporate the vice colors into their existing uniforms in same way, too.

    I would love to see those unis become full time, current Soxers unis are bland. I would.love to see the Spectrum look full time for them.

    Raptors should think about doing the same and going more towards purple again full time.

    Glad the Heat were able to get these back on the court. It seemed shortsighted to only use them for one year when they look so good. Refreshing the look every year got us to the woeful gradient and Culture jerseys which were just woof. These and their primary look are what they should always use. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up.

    Yeah I agree. The Heat culture uniforms should be used as rags to clean up excess oil during an oil change. The Vice uniforms pop out just enough but not to the point of becoming an eye sore. They’re just right.

    Dang it, I was in the middle writing an extremely long and verbose comment when my page refreshed on its own.

    Anyway, the short version is that I’m very happy to see these return, not only because they are great and I own the black version, but also because I was very disheartened to see that in the version of 2K that I’m playing (2024 – from last season), the Heat have no Vice uniforms to choose from. Their entire in-game wardrobe is various version of the red, black, and white sets they’ve worn since their inception.

    Very good news!!!

    How can the wolves do this for their white throwbacks from last year?? It’s still all over their shops at Target Center to my recollection.

    These are all great except for the hideous gradient ones. The opportunity was there to make pink ones, and they overcomplicated things. Anyway, yeah, these are beautiful and should be their new permanent uniforms. Maybe have versions that are black/white/red as a nod to their current/original color scheme.

    Im fairly certain these debuted in the first year of Nike (2017-18) and not 2018-19, which saw the black ones.

    Yeah, I thought the black ones were first actually (I remember DWade wearing those), but at the very least, I think you’re right about the year – 2017.

    This is closer to how the City Edition project should work. Do your yearly unveilings, but when one works: KEEP IT. Whether it stays as the City edition for another few years, or becomes Association or whatever. The current program, the good ones get thrown out just as easily as the bad ones

    Agreed, though I’d argue new City editions should be scrapped altogether. After 8 years of the program, every team should have *at least* one good version to keep. I’m thinking of the Jazz’ “red rocks” set from early on. Those were great.

    they should make these permanent but use the heat wordmark. that would be the perfect uniform.

    I know the Lakers were allowed to bring back their 2017 City Editions in the 2020 bubble to honor Kobe, but it is interesting to see the league let the Heat do this just because. Hopefully in the next couple years teams will start to bring out whatever old jerseys they want (even though traditionalists will hate that). I’m personally hoping to see the Grizzlies blue throwbacks from 2020 and the Nuggets white Earned editions from ’21.

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