Summer fashion
For BBL04 all teams will be getting new kits produced by Majestic Athletic. They are replacing Kooga who supplied kits for the first three seasons.
I’ve never really been a massive fan of Kooga kits in any sport, some of their attempts in Rugby League have been dreadful, probably the only jersey they’ve produced that I actually liked was the Wallabies jersey from a couple of years back.
It’s not that the Kooga BBL kits were bad, but something about them never quite felt professional enough for the big stage. The Kooga shirts looked a little like warm-up/training shirts, I think it was a combination of the nasty printed patterns (which, admittedly improve post-BBL01) and the lack of a collar.
Majestic Athletic, for the uninitiated, are the uniform suppliers for Major League Baseball, and the BBL is their first foray into the cricketing world.
A few general points to get things started.
- Simpler is better. In general there is no need for crazy graphics, or gradients, the BBL team colours are loud enough. In some cases – the Renegades, for example – the crazy graphics actually compete with, and are more prominent than, the major sponsor.
- Sponsor’s logos should be better integrated – this is a problem in just about every sporting code, with very few team/sponsor combos getting it right – the Heat got it right with the Linc Energy logo, the Thunder got it very wrong with the Webjet logo. Badly integrated sponsors are one of the main things that stop me buying team merchandise (the other being excessive prices).
- I’d love to see a collar on the BBL shirts, it’s unlikely to happen, but I feel it would improve them a lot.
From the couple of photos/videos showing the new kits produced by Majestic Athletic, the first thing I noticed was that they appear to sit better on the players, and are a little less baggy than some of the Kooga shirts. Overall what we’ve seen so far, the new Majestic Athletic kit looks to be an improvement across the board.
Adelaide Strikers
Nothing revealing their new kit has popped up online yet. They’ll probably get similar black side-panels to those seen on either the Sixer’s or Thunder’s new shirt shown further down.
What I really want to see is them use blue pads, please, the black ones look terrible. Or change to wearing black pants. Honestly I’d be fine with either, just make the pants and the pads match. I’d also ditch the large “S” on the bottom of the shirts that snakes it’s way up out of the players pants. I shouldn’t have to explain why…
Brisbane Heat
The Heat have started photoshopping black side-panels onto a few of the images they’re using on social media and their mascot has also changed to feature black in-place of the previous grey. So it looks like a change is coming, probably using the same template as the Sixers.
The Heat are the only team that has an element of their logo (the flames) that works well as a printed pattern on their shirts, they’re also one of the better in terms of integrating their sponsors logos.
Hobart Hurricanes
I haven’t found anything online yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Hurricanes swap the grey on their uniforms for black in the same way that it appears the Heat are going to. We would then have all teams wearing colour+black.
One change I’d like, same deal as the with Strikers, it for them to make the pads match the pants. The black-on-purple isn’t quite as jarring as the Strikers black-on-blue, but it’s still not great – especially when all the other ‘highlights’ on their kit are currently grey. If they do switch the grey to black on their kit they might almost get away with the black pads.
Melbourne Stars
I suspect there won’t be much change to the Stars kit – especially if it follows the same template as the new Sydney Thunder kit. Even still, if it follows the template the Sixers are using they’ll drop the black collar, and have different shaped black side-panels, but that’s about it.
This applies to probably all teams except the Heat, I’d like them to ditch the sublimated/printed star design on the front of their playing shirts. As it is the stars on the Stars’ shirts are so light you can barely see them, so why not drop them completely. Just go solid colour, with a nicely integrated sponsor, leave the embellishments to the side-panels or not at all.
Melbourne Renegades
Like the Stars they probably won’t change much at all. I’d probably expect the black highlights to move from the sleeves to the side-panels though to bring them in-line with everyone else.
I’d really like to see them drop the large “R” symbol off the front of the shirt, it doesn’t work positioned so low on the shirt and it conflicts with the sponsors spot (mainly because it’s three times the size). Instead, on the chest, swap the full team logo for just the “R”, it’ll stand out more. They already do this on their caps/helmet. The full “Renegades” badge doesn’t work at the smaller sizes – same applies to the Scorchers and Strikers.
Perth Scorchers
Hoggy very kind pulled on the Scorchers new kit for the video announcement of his return. The orange seemed a little different but it could just be the video/lighting, and the black stripped pattern is still there, but on the lower left side, rather than the right. Overall there is less black, and the hard orange-to-near-white gradient seems to be gone. It looks a lot better.
That said, I’d probably still get rid of the black pattern and try and integrate the sponsors a little better.
Sydney Sixers
The Sixers new gear was probably the first to pop up online when they posted a photo of Nathan Lyon wearing it for a photo shoot a few weeks ago – a few better shots have shown up since including the one below where Brett Lee is kindly holding it up for the cameras. Really just a simplification of the previous years, less black overall, bit of white trim on the side panels, less white ‘sparkles’ on the front.
While they are less prominent on the new gear, I still don’t like the ‘sparkles’ on the front of the Sixers’ shirts, it looks like they’ve been splattered with bleach. I know it’s meant to look like a constellation of stars or camera flashes or something, but it doesn’t work.
Sydney Thunder
The new Thunder shirts have popped up a couple of times on the Thunder’s Facebook page in the past week or so. Main changes being the black highlights moving from the sleeves to the side-panels (expect the same for the Renegades) and, thankfully, the removal of the ‘T’ / lightning bolt graphic, which appears to have been replaced by a much more subtle lightning pattern – still unnecessary, but an improvement.
There have been no sponsors, major or minor, in any of the pics thus far, but if Webjet are continuing I hope that they are better integrated – sure, it’s not the greatest logo to begin with, but the big red box on last year’s kit was pretty horrid. What should it look like? You don’t need to look any further than Sydney FC in the A-League.
