If you happened to catch the latest victims, er, clients of Nike's uniform takeover, er, partnerships, you might be wondering the same thing I am: is the sports apparel giant working toward a "one world government" when it comes to colors?
The newest unis to be unveiled by Nike-owned, er, partnered universities were Arizona State and Washington State, brought before the public eye last week. While the design of the uniforms are nice, and the updated ASU logo is catchy (although it resembles more of a trident blasting off than the devil's pitchfork), one thing that stood out to me was the addition of an all-black uniform for the Sun Devils and an all-gray uniform with black pants for Wazzu.
Here's my issue with this trend. Remember back in the late-'90s, I think it was, when it seemed like every team in the country was adding black to their uniforms just for the sake of adding it? The Detroit Lions added a black outline around their leaping lion logo; the San Francisco 49ers added black to their oval logo and stripe scheme; and even Stanford added black to their logo and helmet stripe. There was an uproar among old school fans and even some TV analysts. But rather than black becoming less popular from the backlash, it's only become more popular.
Now, though, thanks to Nike and their revolving door of uniform experiments at Oregon, black has become more chic than sequins on a Vegas showgirl. What bothers me about it is that pro teams and universities are adopting these styles and color schemes at the expense of traditional colors. Take Oregon, for example. For decades, the Ducks were green and yellow or green and gold with white. Granted, Phil Knight has to have some say into what the athletic teams at Oregon look like since he and his corporation pump millions of dollars into it. But to take a once-colorful tradition and clothe its players in black (never a school color) or silver (never a school color) or all-white (a tertiary color) signals a trend toward creating a colorless college football landscape.
I read an article recently that quoted one ASU player as being sold on the all-black look and that it would guarantee better quality recruits. Really? Kids are now picking which college they want to attend based on uniform color? I beg to differ. My oldest son is at least one case in point. His favorite color is orange, which also was one of his high school colors. But he chose to go to the University of Oregon (green/yellow/white/black/silver, etc.) based on its academic merits rather than enroll at the O's arch-rival Oregon State simply because their school colors include orange.
In the case of my alma mater, WSU, I'm actually pretty pleased with the new look. They've gone from silver helmets to a more basic gray, and have kept the crimson more true to its original hue. But what I really don't like are the all-gray unis with the black pants. For one, again, WSU has never had black as part of its school colors, except for the black outline around the Cougar script logo that the team introduced in 1988. For another, we can now look as ridiculous as the Huskies in their black uniforms come Apple Cup time. The thing that really bugs me, though, is the gray helmet with a slightly darker gray logo. That might look nice up close, but people past the fifth row at Martin Stadium won't be able to see that logo at all. It probably won't show up on TV very well, either.
My conclusion is that in 10 years, Nike will have become "partners" with every major college football program in America, and they will have convinced every one of them that neutral colors are the way to go, and logos that blend into the uniform are trendy. But in reality all they will be doing is minimizing the proud tradition of school colors and unique logos. Heck, if Nike has its way, every college team in the country will look like Penn State, except the blue stripe will be black (Go, Ebony Lions!).
So here's to a bright (or dull) future for college football, where Alabama will change its name to the Silver Tide, Texas Tech will become the White Raiders, and it will all look quite nostalgic in glorious black-and-white HD.
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