Nike and the NBA have been releasing “City Edition” jerseys for each team since 2017. They are supposed to be designed after the city every team plays in, and every team (with a few exceptions) gets a unique jersey every season. Which is a cool idea in theory.
While they have had some beautiful designs over the years, like the Nuggets’ black rainbow skyline jerseys and the Heat’s Vice City jerseys, there have been a lot of disappointing results. Just look at this years leaked jerseys for the same Nuggets and Heat, two of the ugliest jerseys I have ever seen. Who approved these?
I believe it would be a better system to run a fan contest to design the “City Edition” jerseys for their favorite team. Anyone who wanted to could design a jersey and submit it to the team website or whatever. Then the organization could pick like 20 of their favorite designs (filtering out all of the unserious submissions) and have the public vote on their favorite. They could even give season ticket holders a bunch of additional votes or something.
If they did it this way, I think there would be better jerseys that the fanbase would enjoy more, and as a result more jerseys would be sold. Meaning more money for Nike and the NBA (not that I care💀). Or I guess Nike can just keep having their interns design the jerseys in 10 minutes, which is probably what will continue to happen.
As someone who grew up on soccer (where at least three new jerseys every year has become the norm, and there’s a lot of misfires every year), I actually like the idea of just changing one special edition jersey every year and keeping the classics as the main jerseys.
But abominations such as our (Bulls) jersey and the Heat’s jersey can’t happen.
I like the idea of fans playing a role in the overall process, but instead of involving us in the design process, maybe involve us in the selection process? Like each summer, present 1-3 options that fans can vote for? Allow teams to present the previous design as an option in case it was a big hit?