Good morning, Uni Watchers. It’s Friday — we made it!
Although the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) doesn’t begin it’s season for a couple weeks, the leagued dropped new kits for each of the 14 teams yesterday, so our own Jamie Rathjen will be bringing you the rundown for those this morning.
There’s a lot to get to, so I’ll turn it over to Jamie now. Enjoy and I’ll catch you after this piece.
NWSL Releases 2025 Batch of Shirts
by Jamie Rathjen
All 14 NWSL teams received one new shirt (with one exception) yesterday. It’s unusual that almost all of them came out at once. It’s also unusual that these are almost all away/secondary/second-choice shirts (with two exceptions this time) because they’re replacing a diagonally-halved template from last season that every team shared on one of their shirts. But there is none of that standardization this time; it’s back to a free-wheeling set of new and old color schemes, patterns, and more, with what I would call unusually vapid marketingspeak, even by this sport’s standards. Because of the short notice (I did not know it would be a league-wide event), we’ll highlight a few designs and let the pictures do the talking for the rest.
Like with the MLS’s Eastern Conference, I don’t think any of these designs are bad in any form and neither do I dislike any of them, but at the same time nothing is jaw-droppingly spectacular.
Angel City
We start with a pretty basic city-themed design of the kind that US soccer teams really like to lean into. Pink and black are nice as accents here.
Bay FC
The newest team was the only one to get two designs, implying in doing so that these are their first for-real efforts, and these came out before all the others. There’s more orange than before, which I’m a fan of even if it leaks over into looking baseball Giants-esque. That is a dark blue, though, not black. I’m somewhat relieved that centered crests are not a league-wide thing except for goalies as I feared.
Chicago Stars
Red may be gone from the name, but not the color scheme, and black is back in its position as a recurring first or second-choice shirt color; the latter in this case. This shirt was shown with both black and teal socks yesterday, which is interesting: why not red? It’d add some color in a way that fits in for sure, while there’s almost teal in this design.
Houston Dash
One of the more out-there designs in this set is Houston’s black and purple, including purple socks, but it comes off well enough. Sorry, no H-Town Blue today; I’m of the view that Dash second shirts need to be a dark color and they’ve accomplished that here.
Kansas City Current
The Current have finally done mono-teal after getting most of the way there last season while still throwing in some white because of the template they had to use. They claim to have made the color “one of the most iconic hues in the world of football.” But they aren’t even the only team in this league that uses teal or sky blue, as we’ll see…
Gotham FC
…very quickly, because Gotham went the same route but paler and with an interesting black ice hockey-style shoulder yoke, for lack of something better to call it, that appears to extend a little bit onto the sleeves. I think I’d like to see more teams try that. After last season, it’s the second time they’ve worn sky blue as Gotham FC, the color after which they used to be named.
North Carolina Courage
The Courage replaced one mono-pinkish outfit with another and would definitely be a good fit for the Valentine’s Day Dressed for the Season piece two weeks late. It’s an interesting choice for a team that had barely used the splash of red in its color scheme before last season. I’d like to see many of these brightly-colored shirts with dark shorts, but again it appears that’s not happening.
Orlando Pride
It’s the Pride’s 10th season and they got a little 10th-season logo on the lower right front, where most of the teams have a small patch that usually serves no real purpose like their counterparts in MLS. They started out with light blue accents, and so they have returned to those for the first time since 2020. As their purple first shirt used the common template that’s being replaced, they’re the only team besides Bay that got a new first shirt.
Portland Thorns
The Thorns are back in black with red accents, but this time as second choice for the second time in a row after it was first choice for the first part of this decade. All of those shirts have looked good, but at the same time I would say this isn’t an instant classic like its rose-based predecessors.
Racing Louisville
I’m not going to complain about a dark green shirt because those are not common in this sport. Louisville can’t use its mint green as a base color right now because its first shirt is light purple, so this was probably the right choice. In a minor miracle, we have contrasting black shorts, which I think is also a good choice.
San Diego Wave
I guess we should have seen a water-based design coming at some point, so that the Wave’s two shirts now encompass the beach and the sea. It manages to cram in all the colors from the team’s crest except for the sun’s shade of orange.
Seattle Reign
The first incarnation of the Reign used something closer to royal blue than the current version’s navy blue and that returns here as an accent color. But it’s a little overshadowed by gold on the white background, which was only added as an accent color the second time around. Before anyone gets excited, the lack of an ad means the team is looking for a new one.
Utah Royals
The state-shaped alternate crest here is outstanding and probably the pick of this entire batch of designs. But we have another water-based pattern because of the Great Salt Lake, so the Royals just end up looking like San Diego-lite with yellow accents. (Do people even associate Utah with water?) At least there are yellow socks, which is a nice touch.
Washington Spirit
Okay, so it’s the Spirit’s second season with the black and yellow color scheme. Time to properly put them together on a shirt, right? No? Green instead? Two shades of green? And we’re choosing the wrong one to go down the sides where it directly borders the yellow?
That seems like about how we got to this design. The green-on-green accents actually look really good in this setting, but obviously real life might be different. I can see no reason why that pattern or the dark green by itself isn’t also used down the sides; instead, we get a bright color suddenly transitioning to another bright color, which was very avoidable. Despite how it looks, I don’t think green is a needed addition to this color scheme and is only going to remind people of Jamaica, Australia, Norwich City, et al. But I’m a Spirit fan and ended up liking this design more than I thought I would.
Goalies
Houston goalie Jane Campbell was included with the release materials, showing off the common keeper template with a centered crest.
Thanks, Jamie! I absolutely love the magenta and black combo of the Houston Dash. Magenta and fuchsia are criminally underused colors in sports, so I’m glad to see it’s being used here. I might even have to spring for a pair of those socks.
Readers? What do you think of the new kits?
Winner-Utah
Loser-Houston
GTGFTS
8 April 2001
Aramis Ramirez hits 3 HR in front of 30,174
GTGFTU:
NBA Paris Game 2023.
January 19, 2023, Chicago Bulls 126 – Detroit Pistons 108.
Zach Levine led the way for the Bulls with 30 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists.
Not a fan of the current Washington Spirit color combo. Please go back to red. #rockthered
Same, though weren’t they midnight Navy with red trim?
There was that phase, but it came after periods of mostly red or red and blue more evenly.
Seems like Houston is going with the same inspiration as their MLS counterparts, but with infinitely better execution
link
Not a huge fan of Chicago – I’ve never been a fan of continuing a pattern on the shorts (although it works on rare occasions, this not being one imo), or Gotham – there’s too much black for me, and it creates an imbalance. Plus, their home kit is basically half blue/half black, so there’s not that much contrast when you have that much black on the shoulders.
Overall, these are all nice enough. I agree on Washington with the light green bordering the bright yellow, but overall, it’s not not working for me.
I like Utahs, it is unique when a team matches top with shorts but socks are different
Seems like a missed opportunity for Doordash to not be the advertiser on the Houston Dash kits.
Great review Jamie!
I can’t get used to the Spirit in this highlighter scheme. Just seems off to me, and yes, this years definitely gives Jamaica/Australia vibes.
Louisville is another one that is throwing me for a loop. That shade just doesn’t make me think “Racing Louisville.” They need a proper collar too. This one worn by them and I think just Chicago, is…different? Anyone else catch this collar style on any other team?
As always, Utah needs to ditch their jersey advertiser. It ruins anything they put out there.
Thanks!
For people who don’t know, other teams’ fanbases have complained about the name of Utah’s advertiser (a credit union) for basically the entire two-plus years they’ve had it. link
Careful what you wish for, the Royals could switch to Utah First Credit Union
link
Changing the name to Stars from Red Stars is such an epic downgrade.
This is a great set of kits, presented really well by Jamie. Always a pleasure reading your analysis, which is clearly backed up by a passion for the league and deep knowledge of the clubs.
Also love that Rockies concept and Phil’s original!!!
Thanks!
1. Not sure who or where some of the teams play based on their names Angel City? Bays? I assume Washington is DC since there’s a Seattle team.
2. There’s no real team identity other than a sponsor. It’s the problem I have with most other minor sports. The advertiser is bigger than the city/country or the team.
3. Protesting America First? No comment.
Sorry, when I did these articles for Paul he always made me mention the cities somewhere. Those are California teams: Angel City is Los Angeles, Bay FC plays in San José.
You accidentally wrote “Guess the Game from the Uniform” twice instead of one being “Guess the Game from the Scoreboard”
Good catch!
Now fixed.
I’d like to suggest the ticker page be formatted like today’s unusually lengthy soccer kit post.
Is it feasible to please add images to the ticker page rather than links❓
As a Seattle fan, I’m grateful to have an *actual* road kit for this year.
If anyone remembers, we got a new home kit last year to go with the revamped logo and team name. But for some reason, our road kit had a red Nike swoosh, which was one of our old colors (when we were OL Reign).
I assume that was a cost-saving measure—which would never happen in a men’s league, but I digress. Regardless, these new unis look great.
Interesting bit:
The Morning Footy folks on the CBS Golazo Network rated 10 of the kits (oddly enough, not including San Diego Wave, which should have been graded the best), and the Washington Spirit finished LAST.
Feels like the Spirit kit is getting dumped on a little bit too hard. I agree with Jamie in that they picked the wrong colour for the side stripe, but it’s still a great jersey to me.
Yeah, something like that isn’t so irredeemable it’s going to ruin the design for me.
I dig your Rockies concept, Matt! It really separates those uniforms from the rest of their rather generic set (save for their excellent City Connect look).
Racing Louisville had a nice checkered design before; will they still use that? None of these is that amazing, really, kind of Nike phoning it all in.
Yes, the checkered/argyle design is their current first shirt.
I like how Louisville has a contrasting color on the knee area of their socks. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that before and it looks really good.