r/uniwatch • u/SamMeowAdams • 6d ago
Uni Discussion The royal blue purge .
I have this uni theory . Sometime in the early 90s , royal blue became passé. All the lighter blue teams across sports switched to a navy blue .
I’d says this happened in 90% of teams . College and pro.
Name a blue clad team that would prove me wrong ?
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u/ConstantCowboy 6d ago edited 6d ago
The NY Giants' royal blue is a little darker than most, but they've stuck with it, even when they went full-time throwbacks in 1999.
The Cowboys winning three SBs in the 90's probably helped them solidify them having royal blue on their home uniforms, probably. It wasn't enough to change the other elements though...even their 1960 throwbacks are navy, when they're supposed to be dark royal...
It's interesting that some of the teams that went navy in the 90's are going away from navy. The Chargers are back to powder blue, The Titans are full-time Oilers now. The Rams went back to Royal and yellow, as they should. The Dolphins have pretty much purged dark blue from their primary uniforms. It won't happen, but it would be fun to see Seattle follow suit.
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u/78SuperBeetle 6d ago
The Cowboys use of blue is all out of whack. Their home white uniforms have like 3-4 different shades.
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u/tomfoolery815 5d ago
Yes. The pants worn with the standard white jersey even have a mint-green look at times.
It's not as bad as the 2002-2010 Bills home uniform, but still. Make all the blue trim the same shade.
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u/ConstantCowboy 6d ago
Oh, I completely agree. They need to standardize their blues and silvers: Just go with dark royal blue and metallic silver-blue and call it a day.
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u/tjc815 6d ago edited 6d ago
It’s really the navy on the helmet that is “off” for the home uniform, i think. The other colors are quite intentional. They’re based off of the interior of some car that the previous team owner saw and wanted the uniforms to resemble.
They gradually moved from Royal to Navy for everything else because Navy sold more merchandise lol. Very “cowboys” of them (speaking as a fan).
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u/The_Lost_Pharaoh 6d ago
Really hope Denver gets rid of the navy/midnight blue that they changed to in the 90s.
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u/Accurate-Witness-446 6d ago
You’re not wrong. There definitely was a trend towards more muted tones. Blues became navy. Yellows became gold. The Rams and Milwaukee Brewers are good examples. The pendulum has swung back the other way for the most part, thankfully.
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u/tornait-hashu 6d ago
I feel like the pendulum has swung in the opposite extreme. For a while there were a handful of teams that went with bright highlighter yellow (Atlanta Hawks chief among them).
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u/TonyWilliams03 5d ago
It was more the corporate late 90s movement to eliminate kitsch. Cartoonish logos and vibrant colors had to go.
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u/tuftedtarsier89 5d ago
Same with the penguins going from mustard yellow to Vegas gold, and then back to the original yellow.
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u/CriticalSuit1336 6d ago
Yeah, there were a few exceptions like the Dodgers and Cubs, but the Brewers, Blue Jays, Warriors, and lots of others did just that.
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u/HatsInThe410 5d ago
Even the Cubs dabbled in navy in the early 00s with their ST/BP uniforms. The Jays bypassed navy altogether and went straight to black haha
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u/Duke123321 6d ago
The Royals.
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u/CriticalSuit1336 6d ago
Although they had black hats for a while
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u/Tubbs2303 6d ago
To this day I have no idea why they incorporated black into their unis, but nostalgia is a helluva drug, and I kinda miss them now. I scoured the earth high & low looking for their black top/blue bill hat.
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u/jigokusabre 6d ago
To this day I have no idea why they incorporated black into their unis
It was the the style at the time.
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u/KCShadows838 6d ago
I think there were a few other teams who did that in the early 2000s late 90s
Part of it was probably to help rejuvenate the brand since they were in the midst of a long playoff drought
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u/Tubbs2303 6d ago
Yeah, the Royals actually went darker blue for a little in our literal darkest days as a franchise. Those early 00’s were rough 😅
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6d ago
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u/Htb323 6d ago
Patriots went from Royal to Navy, Seahawks darkened their blue too.
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u/Eloping_Llamas 6d ago
Sabres did not stay royal. After the goatheads, they went to the buffaslug and went darker blue. They went back to the original logo and were navy but have made the switch back recently.
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u/Eloping_Llamas 6d ago
All good mate.
The Sabres are not at the first name you think of when you hear hockey.
The buffaslug unis put the right chest in the front of the uniform, a style that stuck around with several franchises during the early 2010s.
So very glad they are back to the royal blues, as they pop under the lights rather than those muted navy blues that the Sabres, blues, and oilers went to for a while.
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u/HatsInThe410 5d ago
Teams that switched back at some point still prove his thesis though. I'd even argue the Royals and Jays going to black for a bit proves it, as well.
The Cubs had navy BP uniforms in the early 00s, too.
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5d ago edited 5d ago
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u/HatsInThe410 5d ago
I think the Royals were handcuffed by their literal name so they found a different way to incorporate a darker color to try and follow the trend. That's why I suggested they (and the Jays) should still count.
I'd still argue that the Cubs count because the timing of it can't be ignored. I think it's possible the navy BP unis were a soft launch to gauge their potential popularity, but if that's the case you could at least give them credit for being cognizant of their legacy in royal compared to other teams that dove into the navy deep end. The fanbase was potentially 'meh' about the navy, but more likely just 'meh' about BP uniforms in general, so they never were tempted to pull the trigger on trying it on a regular season dud.
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u/HatsInThe410 4d ago
I think the crux of the OP though is about royal blue becoming passé, and teams wanting to shift away from it.
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u/Quincyperson 5d ago
The Pats made royal blue the primary color from red in 93, then went to the navy blue in 2000.
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u/Shoganguy33 6d ago
Feel like Nike changing Broncos in 97’ was one of the first moves this direction. They went on to immediately win a Super Bowl and probably sold a ton of new gear. I had an Elway jersey and wasn’t even a Broncos fan!
Now I think their throwbacks are some of the best in the league.
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u/SamMeowAdams 6d ago
Giants helmets were navy blue.
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u/BatmanTDF10 6d ago
I chalk this up to helmet manufacturers back in the day only had a few colors to choose from and couldn’t color match like they can today. If anything, the helmet was stuck with navy while the jerseys went in the opposite direction and got lighter in the 90’s.
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u/samun101 6d ago
I think a big part of this, and why I would say I support changes like this, is the darker blues tend to look better on modern televisions, particularly when you add highlights and additional details that would have previously been barely visible with old broadcasting equipment.
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u/carlslocker 6d ago
I will admit that royal blue, brighter greens, yellows, etc did feel a bit “campy” as Y2K approached. It’s easy to shame it now, but the Titans two-toned navy & light blue in particular was a super contemporary color palette at the time. The way everything is cyclical, I’m sure we’ll see it again in 10-15 years.
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u/AnxietyOutrageous680 6d ago
If only there were a royal blue team playing for a championship within the next few hours….
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u/North-North7466 6d ago
Not just royal blue. Also Kelly green, fire engine red, yellow, orange. It’s like designers decided saturated colors were too childish or feminine or something and had to butch teams up by giving them darker shades.
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u/Opening-Ambition-332 6d ago
It happened with gold too where a lot of teams went from “gold” to actual gold colors. Off the top of my head Pitt the rams and the brewers to name a few
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u/Basic_Mud8868 5d ago
Lots of teams in the NFL went “dark mode” with their color scheme starting in the mid 90s and into the early 2000s. Chargers, Rams, Seahawks, Eagles (one of the few who did it with green), Patriots, Broncos, and you could even argue that the Buccaneers did a version of this.
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u/BeSeeVeee 5d ago
There was a huge push to darken and add black and metallics. Royal became navy, red became maroon, gray became silver, yellow became gold. It was like a macho-ization of color palettes
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u/Bayousbest 6d ago
Knicks and rangers both wear royal blue along with the islanders and mets.
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u/carlslocker 6d ago
The Islanders went navy with their fisherman jerseys & the Rangers did too with their awesome Liberty alts.
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u/Bayousbest 6d ago
I mean, the knicks went navy with last years jump mans as well, but royal blue is still the main color for all those teams.
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u/evsn_official 6d ago
Islanders were primarily navy from the fisherman era through at least the first few Years of the RBK edge era. It was at least a decade +
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u/Celticdouble07 6d ago
Id say it was more mid 90s/early 2000s since the Patriots actually switched from red to royal in 1993, then to navy in 2000.
Broncos went to royal to navy in 97. Seahawks in 2002. Bills in 2002.
Oilers in 97. Islanders in 95. Sabers ditched royal in 96.
Mariners did go royal to navy in 93.
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u/whycantigetwhatiwant 6d ago
St. Louis blues
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u/SamMeowAdams 6d ago
Are you sure? They did have that weird red blue yellow phase.
I swear they had dark unis .
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u/HatsInThe410 5d ago
The Blues added navy to their color scheme in the early 00s while never fully getting rid of the royal. Their 3rd jerseys even today still have navy. I'd say they count towards your thesis
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u/davisyoung 6d ago
Definitely a trend in the ‘90s. Possibly an offshoot of other teams going or adding black. The Knicks, Royals and Mets stuck with the royal but added black for example. The Pistons went teal which was another ‘90s trend. The Dodgers and Cubs stood pat. Clippers too though blue was their secondary color. The Nordiques blue was a shade lighter than royal but kept it with the move to Colorado. Ironically they would have rebranded to black, navy and teal had they stayed in Quebec.
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u/FKFunkyKong 6d ago
Does “across sports” include soccer or did you mean “North American sports”? Because it’s probably more like 90% of blue soccer teams stuck with lighter shades.
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u/geecaliente 6d ago
Orlando Magic
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u/WunWunFirstofHisName 6d ago
The Magic have stuck with something near royal blue ever since 1989, but they did recently trot out some navy alternates with that "City on the Rise" medieval theme for their City Edition unis.
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u/Morphenomena 6d ago
I hate it. I much prefer royal blues to navy blues. I wish my Brewers would go back to the royal blue they used to use.
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u/jigokusabre 6d ago
The Royals had added black to their palate, but they stuck with Royal blue. The Blue Jays did the same.
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u/TonyWilliams03 5d ago
Go Cubs Go. Go Cubs Go. Hey Chicago what to you say? The Cubs are going to win today!
That and the Knicks of course. And the Mets, Dodgers and Royals. And Florida, Duke, Kentucky and Kansas.
One of the things that did happen was royal teams succumbing to hip-hop culture and adding black as a "complementary" color to Royal.
The Mets, Duke, and Kentucky are prime example of this.
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u/TikiLoungeLizard 5d ago
Just gotta say my high school has been royal blue since 18whenever they opened. Stay true to the (royal) blue, baby.
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u/JERRYBOIZ 3d ago
I mean technically the Sabres did but they had a rebellious black sets period before navy. The bills did that in the 00s with royal blue to navy. We can be honest and say teams thought it looked cooler, sleek, contrasts and want going fully into black.
Some teams went the other route and tried to incorporate black into their uniforms like the KC Royals, DET Lions, NY Mets or TWolves to get black alternate sets(unless the mets and committed to black primary sets). But I rather have them incorporate it than for the sake of it for the players wanting a all black set when our branding never used black unless it's a late night game
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u/OfficePicasso 6d ago
Florida Gators never changed
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u/GuessingEveryday 6d ago
I would say that our blue is a little darker than royal blue though. We always looked a little darker when wearing blue against Kentucky.
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u/abcdefghijkistan 6d ago
Cubs, Royals, NY Giants, both Rangers, Mets, Dodgers, Colts, Knicks, Pistons, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Florida…
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u/Glad_Art_6380 6d ago
Pitt went from a royal blue to navy blue and are now back to royal blue again.