Not in love with the design, but now I can get rid of a bunch of my old jerseys. (Patch will be located on sleeve.) ..
Agreed, not attractive - BUT, I do like the idea of a single jersey. I think USSF should do the same. Tired of carrying two editions of 5 colors of two sleeve lengths around....
And I think rain should be beer not water. Just as likely to happen . . . (I do think the Brits have it right: below the pros, refs only wear the traditional black. Any league that want the refs to wear something else must give the shirts to the refs. But that ship has long since sailed, and to mix my metaphors, its not a genie that is getting back in the bottle.)
I disagree - it could go back in the bottle - it would take about 2 years' notice for teams to move away from whatever the selected color/design would be. As youth teams age and new teams form, they buy new jerseys consistently, and adult leagues could include the new jersey costs in their beer fees..... I'd even settle for all-black - while I think abuse of young refs is the #1 thing that drive them from the role, I do think the expense and expectation of colors is a problem as well.
And Nike picks it up.... http://www.referee-equipment.co.uk/...it/PRE-ORDER-Nike-2018-Full-Kit-Short-Sleeved
Says the guy living in Denver. It'll be sunny and 90 this weekend for the state cup here. I don't want to wear all black for three games each day. Would it be nice to have one or even two colors? Sure. Is it going to happen? No. Do I like having the options to wear something other than yellow? Yes.
Ok, so let's go green - I'm less worried about what color I'm wearing as I'm pretty sure I look like a sun-burned, middle-aged balding guy of Nordic descent in any color - and Denver gets plenty warm from mid May through September, though we like to say "it's a dry heat"....
I don't think I implied you have to care. But if you're living in a fantasy world where this is possible, taking into account the long-term and "exclusive" uniform supplier of the federation would go out of business might help bring you back to reality. We've been through this before. Nike isn't new to the referee uniform game. It's been supplying all sorts of leagues for over a decade and even had the EPL for a bit. It has edged Adidas out of several markets and seems to have the leg up in Asia. Plus, USSF and Nike have had a partnership since 1995--that's one of the longest continuous contracts to outfit a national team in the world (Germany, Argentina, Spain and Sweden--all Adidas, are the only others that immediately spring to mind as lasting since at least WC 94). So there is a natural relationship with USSF. Yet, for some reason, Nike has shown no interest in entering the US referee market when they have all the leverage in the world to do so. You think they're suddenly going to enter when the number of potential uniforms they can sell shrinks by 80%? @socal lurker is right, whether people like it or not.
I'm not sure - yes a drop number of uniforms sold per referee, but offset that with an over-time increase in the number of referees along with moderate capital costs to enter the market (through redesign of existing products sold in other countries) and extensive distribution networks in terms of brick and mortar as well as online. It might not be as much a barrier as you think.....I'm not in a position to quantify it directly.
There is no real need for an official "exclusive" supplier. Doesn't help the game at all, just lines people's pockets. I wouldn't care a whit if OSI went out of business. If Nike wouldn't, someone else would. Yeah, of course no one expects this to happen, but if it did it would be no big deal.
Do we really think 80%? It seems a bit high. I for one, if I only had one kit I needed to wear would most likely get at least 2. Maybe 3. One in the wash, one in my bag and one on my person. Now maybe we are the rare officials that do more than one game a week or so. Maybe not though... Cripes I have 4 pair of the same dang socks...
Allow me to repeat myself, using slightly different words. I didn't say "OSI would go out of business" in order to elicit your sympathy. I said "OSI would go out of business" to illustrate the unrealistic nature of the thought expressed in the post I quoted. Why? This isn't a question of what people expect or do not expect. This is about @socal lurker's point that it will not happen, full stop. The sole purpose of my initial post was to give a simple, concrete reason, with real-life implication, why he's right. I thought that was clear but apparently it wasn't.
I unfortunately know that MO won’t be the only state to suffer through this assault on fashion. This jersey is a cobbled up POS. If you go to the Smitty website (company making this) they had jerseys with the modern sleeves (like the OSI shirts that done have a seam). They also had other stripe designs which would have made this much more professional. Not to mention, what do you do when you have a green team? This is made all the more frustrating due to my state having been one of those that made a stink abou the USSF logo on sleeves in the past.
I used the word "potential" deliberately. Right now every referee can theoretically be sold 10 jerseys. In the scenario outlined above, that number drops to 2. Of course there are thousands upon thousands of referees that only have 3 jerseys or fewer. No one thinks every referee is going to buy 10 jerseys. But OSI and other suppliers at least know there is a potential for those sales right now and many referees do buy 3 or more jerseys. Nike has no interest in entering a larger market at the moment. I don't think they'd enter significantly reduced market in a meaningful way.
Sorry, I just fundamentally reject the premise that moving from 5 colors to 1 is going to cause a statistically significant increase in referee retention. The officials who buy all the colors are the officials who either actually need or think they need all colors (or just happen to like variety and have the extra money to burn). From what I see out there, the vast majority of referees stick to yellow and maybe one or two alternates and, even then, most new and younger referees stick with yellow. Maybe you have a few referees out there with a home yellow club who feel both forced and aggrieved to have to buy two colors and maybe some of those drop out of the refereeing ranks because of the couple game fees they had to blow on an extra jersey. Maybe, though I am skeptical. But even if it is true, I'd posit those referees weren't going to stick around for awhile anyway. Saving them $45 or $90 isn't going to be what makes them long-term referees. To the general point, if USSF simply said "everyone must wear a black referee jersey and no teams can wear black," then we'd be back to 1998 (but without the fuschia alternate). Nike and Adidas might sell their referee kits online a bit more and you'd have more competition among niche companies. I do not mean to suggest that nothing would fill the void. The problem is there real forces that have an interest in that void never being created. OSI is one. DA is another.
I agree. I hope that the ~$700k that USSF is investing in a new online training program will help make a dent in the lack of retention.