Technically, yes. Warrior is a subsidiary of New Balance that has essentially become their team sports division. Warrior was launched in 1992 by Princeton lacrosse player Dave Morrow (while he was still in school). The company was sold to NB in 2004. Innovative Hockey was purchased by NB in 2005 and rebranded as Warrior. Roughly a year later, NB also bought Brine. Brine makes the official NCAA soccer balls and soccer cleats, among other things. So it's not like Warrior is some entity coming in with no experience. I cannot vouch for their soccer cleats, but their lacrosse cleats are heads and shoulders above Nike and UA; they are gaining a cult following with football players as well. Warrior does have some great designs and they were an early adopter of sublimation. The high school lacrosse team I coach currently has Warrior uniforms. They are high quality and look great. The University of Denver wears Warrior uniforms for lacrosse and hockey; neither team has a bad uniform. Princeton wear Warrior lax jerseys, obviously. Sevilla also wears Warrior kits. All three are posted here. the white looks pretty damn good, IMHO.
Interesting. I had no idea that NB owned Warrior. That Sevilla kit does look good, as do the Denver kits. But the nice kits are usually the ones that get overlooked by the monstrosities, like Liverpool's kit. These are just too busy for me, and remind me of some vintage Jorge Campos kits.
When you really start looking into various brands, it becomes really interesting to learn who owns who and who else they used to own. But one wonders how much of that is Warrior and how much is Liverpool? At the end of the day, Liverpool has to sign off on these kits. On an international scale, Liverpool is a small fish in the EPL pond.* Having radical kits is one way to increase brand awareness. And to some extent, it seems to be working. Since Warrior took over - and especially since these over-designed sublimated kits - Liverpool has been talked about much more frequently. What's the old saying? There's no such thing as bad publicity. Their red kit is perfectly fine. And the white kit is not that bad, if used sparingly. The black kit makes my eyes hurt though - like 90s NHL third jersey bad. If Warrior would just use their W logo without including their brand name, it would help increase the professionalism of the overall look, IMHO. *Compared to the current Big Four: ManU, Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea. Even when Liverpool was in this group instead of Man City, they did not seem to be at the heights of the other three. Being the other other red team probably does little to help (and people bitch about MLS teams' colors!).
This is my one fear with the use of sublimation. When used sparingly, kits can look really good. But teams can also go overboard and end up looking like rec league softball teams.
how long have you been working for Adidas? the simple truth is that a lot of the kits do look alike simply b/c we all use adidas. it will stay this way since mls seems to never want to give the clubs true autonomy
How long have you been following the league? Everyone had their choice on kit manufacturer's until 2006. That's when Adidas stepped in and offered the league more money than any other manufacturer would, on the condition that they be the sole kit provider. The league was bleeding money like a sieve up until this point, and MLS would've likely folded and closed up shop without the Adidas deal. Giving the clubs true autonomy would've killed the league.
no sh*t, i was referring to today and going forward. i've been in since day 1, can't say the same about rsl. how long have you been following the league? i never said the adidas deal was bad business, i merely stated that the only way to get true diversity in jerseys is to have autonomy for the clubs to make their own kit deals.
Here's a better picture of the Rapids kit that shows the main difference that sets it off from other kits, namely the rows of season ticket-holder names
Easy there, cowboy. You should probably switch to decaf. I've been following the league since day one, watching as many games as I could on the spanish channels my rabbit ears picked up. Honestly, I don't see the league ever going back to each team being able to select their own jersey manufacturers. There's too much money available for the league to pass up by selecting a single manufacturer. Name a US league that doesn't have a single manufacturer. MLB has Majestic. NFL had Reebok, now has Nike. NHL has Reebok. NBA has Adidas. Adidas has improved each year they've had the deal with MLS, and I think they'll keep improving. As the league grows, the bidding war for kit manufacturers will increase and bring more money to the league. Going back to jersey autonomy would be a foolish move by the league. They'd get large contracts for the big teams, but much smaller contracts for the small market teams. Having a league wide contract will bring in the most money.
that was pretty class of the club to do, the Colorado flag is nice too, it could look pretty nice on the back of the neck
I dunno, you don't think there will come a day when a few clubs could demand massive contracts? I agree with what you said about US sports but i'd like to think one day the mls clubs will be powerful enough on their own to negotiate their own kit deals and get more money out of it than as a whole. that does mean some clubs will be left in the dust though which goes against what mls wants currently
But you can also do cool shit like sashes, hoops, stripes, bands, and supporters' names. Hell, even names, numbers, and sponsors can be added during the process without adding weight to the jersey or impairing its technological (moisture wicking, etc) features. As long as the league is single entity, or even as long as there is a general revenue sharing system, there will be league wide suppliers. The fact that it works well in the other US sports leagues certainly helps... Do you remember the pre-Adidas days when some teams (Revs come to mind instantly) had little to no merchandise - especially jerseys - available online? The quality and availability varied wildly between teams and some fans were left cold. The NFL and NHL had similar issues before they moved to single suppliers. Growing up as a Vikings fan, I could rarely find tam merchandise and I'm in their general footprint. Raiders? Sure. 49ers? Of course. But Vikings gear was hard to come by growing up. The Reebok deal definitely changed that.
not mls related really, but wanted to show everyone the new Indy Eleven jerseys, which I feel are quite unique and pretty slick. http://store.indyeleven.com/
You're not from Colorado. I grew up there and it's a great jersey to me. I'd change a couple little things on it, but myself and quite a few friends in Colorado love it. Maybe you could use a better pic though:
A Colorado-flag away would be pretty nice. That seems like a half-assed attempt at something that could have been great.
The 2014 San Jose Earthquakes jersey (I'm not sure whether it'll just be the primary jersey or the secondary and perhaps tertiary jerseys as well) is scheduled to be publicly unveiled at a San Jose Earthquakes event in San Pedro Square Market in downtown San José on Thursday, January 30th from 5:30pm to 9:00pm PST. -G
Chicago Fire @ChicagoFire8m New primary in 2014, new secondary in 2015RT @ggooglyboogly: will the team have new home/away kits this year? #cf97 #MLS
Let's hope they bring the white line back. That's the jersey I hate. Singing vitriol at y'all last year didn't feel right