MLB’s new uniforms draw scorn—what the hate means for Nike, Fanatics and the league

Nike’s new uniforms for Major League Baseball teams have struck out with players and fans, raising questions as to what players will be wearing—and what fans will be buying—when the MLB season opens in five weeks. Issues with Nike’s new Vapor Premier uniforms range from aesthetic complaints—nameplates and numbers are too small, trim is missing, the colors are off—to performance objections, like pants that cannot be altered, and materials that players say look “papery” and “cheap.” “Everyone hates them,” Philadelphia Phillies infielder Trea Turner told the Associated Press. The best and worst Super Bowl ads Ad Age reviews the Big Game commercials Click here The uniforms, issued to all 30 MLB teams this year, are meant to bring more athletic and form-fitting tailoring to baseball, with lighter fabrics providing improved mobility and moisture management, according to Nike and MLB. Nike struck a 10-year, $1 billion deal with MLB to be its official uniform supplier starting in 2020, although this is the first year a Nike-designed uniform was issued to players. The uniforms are manufactured by Fanatics on behalf of Nike (Fanatics is also a party in the 10-year equipment deal). Fanatics is also a major retailer of sports apparel and memorabilia, running the online shops for MLB and its teams. The Vapor Elite uniforms were introduced during the 2023 MLB All-Star Game in Seattle. Read more design news from Ad Age Although the issue may well blow over in the coming weeks, in the meantime it could ding the reputations of Nike, Fanatics and MLB, experts say. Also at stake for all three organizations are sales of authentic and replica team jerseys. According to a 2023 fan engagement study by Kantar Sports Monitor, 64% of sports fans bought sports apparel in the past year—a figure that rises to 75% among millennials and Gen Z, a coveted demographic for baseball. Nike did not respond to questions about the new uniforms. Fanatics was not immediately available for comment. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred addressed the new uniforms during a press conference last week. “The jerseys are different. They’re designed to be performance wear as opposed to what has traditionally been worn,” Manfred said. “They have been tested more extensively than any jersey in any sport. After people wear them a little bit, they’re going to be really popular.” The league also pointed to testimony from players at the All-Star Game last year praising the new uniforms. We gave players a first taste of the new Nike Vapor Premier uniforms at last year’s #AllStarGame in Seattle. Here’s what they had to say. https://t.co/h0z0xhIQ2h pic.twitter.com/jsRaGFY96t— MLB (@MLB) February 13, 2024 Brand experts say Nike would likely want to address issues of quality being raised by players and act to protect its brand from taking a hit. “What would worry me from the Nike perspective is that it gets to the core of the brand, which is a design-forward brand. They take pride in their design; it’s one of the things you think of when you think of Nike, which is one of the strongest brands in the world,” Ryan McConnell, executive VP and head of Kantar Sports Monitor, said in an interview. “How much brand impact this will have? It’s going to depend on how much the players are talking about it—and it doesn’t help when MLB players are talking about how it doesn’t fit well or look right.” Learning from the NBA MLB and Nike would do well to learn from the NBA’s botched move to a new ball in 2006, said Charles Rolston, senior director of client strategy at the sports advisory firm Navigate. In that episode, the NBA introduced a synthetic, eight-panel basketball that players said hurt their fingers—only to encounter pushback from the league. The NBA reverted to the old ball only after the National Basketball Players Association appealed to the National Labor Relations Board. Baseball’s current pickle raises similar questions of how much testing and player feedback Nike and MLB solicited about the new look, and how responsive the brands can be, Rolston said. “How much did MLB/Nike work with [the MLB Players Association] in the design and transition? Were players included to provide feedback on comfort, mobility—aspects related to player performance and maybe safety?” Rolston said in an email. “Long-term, the impact to the Nike and MLB brands will be in the response,” he added. “If you go back to the NBA ball example, at first the league pushed back on player feedback [and] created a bit of a power struggle. It was ultimately the safety issue that the league bent on as to why they’d go back.” Sign up for Ad Age newsletters From influencer marketing to agencies, get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox Click here Nike vs. players Three Nike-backed players gush about the new uniforms in a press release issued last week by MLB. “The Nike Vapor Premier jersey is soft, light and comfortable. It’s almost like wearing my favorite shirt out on the field—and so easy to move around in,” St. Louis Cardinals infielder Nolan Arenado is quoted as saying. Yet it was Arenado’s St. Louis teammates who were among the first to bring issues with the new jersey to light. This is what the back of the white jerseys look like with the new template. Players are pretty unhappy. Miles Mikolas says they also don’t fit right; pants are no longer as customized, and the fabric is a very different consistency. “They look cheap,” another player said. pic.twitter.com/UoH4vVHTfd— Jeff Jones (@jmjones) February 13, 2024 The look has even drawn scrutiny from Nike athlete Dansby Swanson, who said he was reaching out directly to Nike over concerns that the shade of blue on his Chicago Cubs uniform didn’t look right. The Major League Baseball Players Union is now getting involved, suggesting players may not have been fully on board with the changes. “We are on the phone with all of the requisite parties that are involved with making that decision because we aren’t,” Tony Clark, MLBPA executive director, told reporters on Tuesday, adding “there appear to be some misses” with the new equipment. “Hopefully we can get something done over the course of the next six weeks of spring training because I’d hate to be in a place where we’re still having conversations about some of the challenges we’re having in that regard once the lights come on for real,” Clark said. Look back: MLB is trying to make it easier to market its players McConnell said Fanatics could also be in for backlash, given it is considerably lesser known and has less consumer goodwill than Nike. In Kantar’s 2022 study of sports brand perceptions, Nike was the top-regarded brand by far, with 65% of sports fans viewing the brand positively (25% were neutral, 9% were negative and 1% were unaware of the brand). Fanatics, by contrast, showed a 31% favorable rating, with 42% neutral, 7% negative and 20% unaware of the brand. “There seems to be some growing negative sentiment around Fanatics because they own a lot of the industry now and they’re growing into a big force, but the perception is they are concerned with profit more than the quality side of things in this situation. That’s not a great perception to have out there,” McConnell said. Fan reaction Baseball fans rarely deal well with change, and the evolving uniform has been something of a purist’s nightmare. They’d barely gotten over the Nike swoosh being added to the front of jerseys in 2020 when sponsor patches arrived on uniform sleeves beginning in 2023. Fan outrage is evident on sites like uni-watch.com, where a community of sports aestheticians dissects the minutia of on-field fashion. The site for instance revealed that the trim that’s been a part of the Atlanta Braves’ belt loops for decades doesn’t appear in the Vapor Premier. The template’s narrower front placket has resulted in odd looks for teams such as the Dodgers, whose logo now breaks in the middle of the ‘d’ instead of between the ‘o’ and ‘d’ as on the old jerseys (this could be solved by changing the size or positioning of the logo, but that’s a sacred branding element to fans). Uniwatch readers also spotted players wearing last year’s pants in spring training workouts, perhaps because the new ones are see-through. Changes to the Dodgers uniforms in 2024: 1. Not as white "wedding gown" white as before.2. Perforated smaller numbers 3. Dodgers’ jersey script breaks awkwardly through the "d" instead of the “o” and the “d." 4. Smaller letters for players' names pic.twitter.com/cACPMJvkzM— Doug McKain (@DMAC_LA) February 10, 2024 Nike has dealt with uniform blowback before. After the company introduced a lighter material for NBA uniforms in the 2017-18 season, a handful of players including LeBron James had their jerseys tear during games. The event prompted Nike to pledge to improve the “embellishment process” and the seam strength on those jerseys. LeBron James' jersey ripped last nightNot a good look for Nike https://t.co/YvhtlyW2AH pic.twitter.com/k52Tg7vete— SoleCollector.com (@SoleCollector) October 18, 2017 Rewind: Nike congratulates LeBron James on scoring record For MLB, the uniform issues could dampen enthusiasm for the coming season after viewership and ticket sales improved in 2023, with momentum from changes that resonated with most fans—like the pitch clock, which improved the pace of play. Rolston said he felt sentiment could get worse before it gets better, “once the season starts and fans are in-market for retail baseball jerseys and watching baseball on TV and in-person.” Radical change may be too much to ask for. “It’s likely extremely difficult for Nike/Fanatics/MLB to pivot and make any mass adjustments to the product at this point in time, so they may be hoping it just blows over during the long baseball season and work on a redesign for 2025,” he said. McConnell, meanwhile, said the issue could blow over soon. “Where this goes is just a matter of how long people keep talking about it,” he said.

MLB’s new uniforms draw scorn—what the hate means for Nike, Fanatics and the league

Featured Stories