Week 7 Thoughts - Demand better alternates
My record on the NFL’s new “Rivalry” uniform program has been pretty consistent since the moment it was announced: I don’t like it. I think the NFL specifically and sports leagues generally are far too quick to roll out new uniforms, and we all know why they’re doing it (and it’s not to give fans an interesting new take on their team’s uniforms).
But I’ll say this for what the NFL is attempting here: at least it’s not just a bunch of black or white alternates.
The general proliferation of alternates is honestly not that big of a deal to me. I think it can be interesting, especially when teams treat their throwback uniforms as an alternate. I love what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are doing with the two versions of their Creamsicle throwbacks — that’s a great, well-handled alternate! But when your design choices boil down to “let’s make it all black” or “let’s make it all white,” I think something has gone wrong.
The black alternate is a bad leftover from the 90s, when branding departments seemed fixated on the idea of making sports teams seem tough and intimidating for some reason. But who are we trying to intimidate? Any professional athlete could already beat me up, but I’m not afraid of that happening, so what’s the point of trying to look scary? And any team they’re going to be playing against is also made up of professional athletes, so what are the chances you’re going to scare them just by wearing your black outfits? I get the idea that having a fun alternate can make certain games feel special, but when everybody’s doing it, the entire effect is watered down.
The black alternate, then, seems to have given rise to the white alternate, the uniform equivalent of the ultra-modern, completely empty kitchens you see on social media. I don’t understand the aesthetic trend in houses of making them appear like nobody lives there, but I feel that design decision echoing through these uniforms. Stripping out every bit of character leaves you with a bunch of uniforms that look almost exactly the same, which defeats the entire purpose of teams having uniforms in the first place. These things are supposed to be unique visual identifiers; jumping on the same trends as everyone else, especially one that literally sucks all the color out of your uniform, enforces the wrong kind of uniformity. If you’re unique in the same way as everyone else, nobody is unique anymore.
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