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Uniform Assessment, 6/20 - Ads on NBA uniforms inevitable, MLB honors a legend

The release of the Charlotte Hornets identity shows the NBA is moving one step closer to using advertisements on jerseys, while Major League Baseball is set to pay tribute to Lou Gehrig, 75 years after his famous speech.

By Andrew Lind

The National Basketball Association is moving its silhouette logo to the back of every team's jerseys next season. A league spokesperson called it a "stylistic move", inevitably pushing the league towards uniform advertisements.

When the Charlotte Hornets unveiled their new uniforms for the 2014-15 season, many fans noticed that the logo, which depicts Jerry West dribbling a basketball, had been moved from its usual spot on the upper-chest, where it has been since 1987. Instead, the logo placement was just above the player's name on the back of the uniform, leaving both sides of the upper-chest empty.

The move comes as no surprise, as NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has previously said that he expects advertisements on uniforms to become the norm within five years. Although commonplace in other countries throughout the world, the big four American sports have not yet adopted the look on their in-game uniforms.

It should be noted that NFL uses advertisements on some of its practice uniforms, while the MLS and WNBA have profited from the increased revenue that comes along with these advertisements for quite some time.

As mentioned, the Hornets unveiled their new uniforms on Thursday morning, and you can read about it and view pictures here.

Meanwhile, the Houston Rockets tried to divert the attention away from North Carolina by releasing a new secondary logo only an hour before the Hornets' announcement. Truthfully, the team did not have a secondary logo before Thursday, as their only alternate option to the primary logo was to remove the team name.

Just like the primary, which uses a rocket ship motif to form an "R", the new secondary logo also forms an "H". The team tweeted that it was a "sneak preview" of the new logo, raising the question of whether there is more in store.

75 years after calling himself the "luckiest man on the face of the earth", Major League Baseball will memorialize the anniversary of Lou Gehrig's famous farewell speech with a commemorative patch. The patch, which will be worn by every team, coach, umpire on July 4th, will pay tribute to the original "Iron Man", who passed away from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) just two years after being forced to retire from the game of baseball at only 36-years-old. Major League Baseball also announced on Thursday, which would have been Gehrig's 111th birthday, that it will donate $300,000 to organizations that fight against Lou Gehrig's disease.

The San Diego Padres began wearing a patch on their jerseys to honor Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, who passed away earlier this week at the age of 54 after a long battle with salivary cancer. The day of his death, the team wore a black band on their sleeves, but have replace it with a more-permanent home plate-shaped patch that will be worn over the heart. Inside of home plate is Gwynn's retired number.

The Chicago Cubs will wear a throwback uniform on Sunday against the Pirates that harken back to the days of Mr. Cub himself, Ernie Banks. The uniforms, modeled after those which Banks wore during his rookie season in 1953, are somewhat plain, featuring only the team's primary logo on the left chest. Among the nine throwback uniforms that the Cubs will wear or have worn this season, the 1953 set was the last to have a zipper, instead of buttons. The Pirates will also take part in Wrigley Field's 100th anniversary celebration by wearing throwback uniforms.

Although they won't be the first school to have a colored turf, Eastern Michigan made headlines on Thursday after unveiling a gray field. Gray isn't one of Eastern Michigan's official colors, even if they wear it on occasion, but my guess is that they wanted their field to match the color of the sky in that state up north.

While a gray field is not mind-blowing, seeing Alabama's traditional crimson helmet decked out in chrome is. Luckily, this is just a fan-made concept and will never see the field, at least under Nick Saban's watch.

Likewise, rumors of Michigan State wearing a white helmet against Oregon have been floating around for a few days. I can confirm that the helmet is not currently in the Spartan's arsenal, and the picture making rounds is only a fan-made photoshop. If I was Mark Dantonio, however, I'd get HGI on the phone pronto.

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