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It all started with the NFL’s “throwback” games, where teams would show off “classic” uniforms from yesteryear, a move tailored for nostalgia, though often hideous and ridiculous at the same time.
Then came the various alternate college uniforms — everything from angel wings to split helmet designs — and things only seemed to get worse.
Don’t think for a minute the NFL would allow its product to be upstaged by the NCAA. The pro football league returned with a vengeance, with its color rush uniform experiment which has since been proved an undisputed bust.
What were they thinking?
Fans thoroughly enjoyed mocking the single-color uniforms via both traditional and social media. Many said the recent Bucs versus Rams game looked like ketchup playing keepaway from mustard. (one look at the scoreboard, though, and it was clearly mustard’s night.) Other clever meme generators replaced players with candles or popsicles. Whatever inanimate objects were chosen, the uniforms were universally panned.
From a PR perspective, it actually got worse for the NFL than a few million finger-pointers on social media. Cue the Bills versus the Jets.
For those unfamiliar, the Bills’ colors are red, white and blue, while the Jets’ colors are green and white. For the color rush game, teams ended up adorned with red and green. There’s just one problem here, and some of you may be way ahead of me: many colorblind persons cannot distinguish between red and green. There are upwards of 13 million colorblind American adults — most of them male — and many fans literally could not tell one team from the other.
The NFL promoted the color rush games as a “test” for potential color changes for next season. So far, it seems, these tests don’t appear to be performing up to expectations. That’s bad news for the NFL, who, despite saying they aren’t married to this promotion, have already planned to have teams in all Thursday games — which are broadcast by the NFL Network — decked out in the color rush uniforms.
So, unless things change, expect more condiments squaring off next season.
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Ronn Torossian is the CEO of 5W Public Relations. 5WPR is headquartered in NYC with offices in Denver and Los Angeles.
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