Florida International University unveiled their new “(Miami) Vice” alternate uniforms for 2025, continuing a theme first begun with their football team in 2023, when they unveiled black uniforms highlighted in bright pink and baby blue, which heavily leaned into the Miami Vice TV show with its colors and design. The football team upped the ante last fall, when the Panthers unveiled their white, second generation Vice uniforms, once again taking the South Beach theme and translating it to their uniforms.
Now the baseball team is joining the Vice squad.
They too have created an alternate which uses the baby blue and bright pink for accents.
Let’s take a look-see:
CAP
The cap is tri-color, with a pink brim, white front panel featuring FIU’s panther logo, two single baby blue panels on either side, returning to white for the back panels.
The rear of the cap contains “FIU” in college block font, in light blue with a bright pink outline.
JERSEY
The white jersey features “Panthers” in pink script with a blue outline/block shadow, with front number in blue with a pink outline. Inset sleeves are light blue, with thick pink stripes at the hem, which don’t quite go completely around. The jerseys may be made by adidas, but they don’t seem to be able to respect the placket any better than the MLB supplier.
One unfortunate design element, created partially due to the jersey chassis, is a V-shaped color block in baby blue extending down to mid-torso. If you note the stitching pattern, that piece of fabric is probably designed to be the same color as the sleeve. Fortunately, it’ll only be visible when a player raises his arm, so it won’t really affect the look too much.
UPDATE: As several readers have pointed out in the comments, it’s pretty clear where the inspiration for the “Panthers” script comes from:
The rear of the jersey will feature “VICE U” (in the Miami Vice TV Show font) in bright pink, offset to a solid blue rectangle, which will serve as NOB for everyone on the team.
Numbers are in baby blue with pink outlines, in the same college block font as the front numbers.
PANTS
Pants are white with a bright pink stripe running down each pant leg. Belts will be light blue.
FULL UNIFORM
Overall, I like these a lot — the baby blue and bright pink are fantastic as accent colors, and for the most part it’s a solid looking uniform. I don’t particularly love the “Panthers” script, which feels a bit chunky, and which is only exacerbated by the thick outline/block shadow effect. As mentioned above, I am also not particularly a fan of the underarm/side panel, but I think that’s more a function of the jersey design than a planned design element by FIU. But aside from those two minor complaints, the uniform is otherwise solid. The tri-color cap design — with the two blue panels sandwiched between a front white and back might take some getting used to — fits in with the whimsical feel of the bright pastels. Overall the blue/pink balance is good; there’s a bit more blue, but the pink is brighter, so the overall pairing works well.
Additonal photos can be seen in this gallery:
The Panthers will debut the (Miami) Vice uniforms tonight at 6:30 p.m. against Merrimack at FIU Baseball Stadium.
Additionally, the new uniforms will be worn when FIU plays the Miami Hurricanes on Tuesday, March 4, at 7:00 p.m.
Your thoughts?
“they don’t seem to be able to respect the placket any better than the MLB supplier”
I was going to say it should be typed “Respect The Placket,” but if uni designers still don’t get the point it should be “RESPECT THE PLACKET.”
The hats’ alternating colors are pretty cool. But the Panthers script looks too much like the old Padres script.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
link
The script reminds me a lot of the mid-2000 Padres script.
I think this came up before on uni watch, but why are we using the term chassis to describe the composition of the way the shirt is stitched together? A chassis is the framework or support structure for vehicle or similar device. Seems like a serious overselling of fabric.
This is a dumb thing that Nike’s abhorrent marketing department started, probably to make talking about sewing patterns seem more “manly”.
The blue panels on the cap appear to have ventilation perforations. Not the full mesh of a trucker’s cap, but similar to jerseys. Interesting.
Not sure how long Adias has done this but Nike college baseball hats have had similar vents for over 5 years
The Vice white/baby blue/pink vibe fits Miami incredibly well. Good on the Heat employee who came up with the concept a decade-ish ago.
00s Padres script with the current Padres city connect
Would have loved to see the Vice/Art Deco/Broadway font used for the numbers on the jerseys too – definitely my choice for letter/number fonts if I were starting a team and designing from scratch!!
Other than the “VICE U” seeming a little copy/pasted (and the black shadow seeming a little abrupt in comparison to everything else), these are beautiful. 10/10.
old padres script
One word for these. Fun. I love ‘em.
As many people have noted this is obviously the padres script which is disappointing and odd that they are that bold to just copy paste that. In that note, I do love that script and wish it made it to the padres new brown and yellows except with the padres and “vice u” the underline feels backwards.
I like it but would have taken the TV show logo font for the Panthers wordmark as well. That hat is really good.
Aced the hat, uniform is really solid but I agree with the clunkiness of the Panthers wordmark. Decrease the drop shadow thickness and make the pink the highlight of the script and I think they would be perfect.