PALM BEACH, Fla. — The NFL is listening to its fans, its teams and its players when it comes to uniforms.
On Monday at the annual league meetings, the league informed NFL team owners that their clubs could wear their throwback or alternate jerseys up to four times in a 17-game regular season. That’s up from the previous three, and it means some of the fan-favorite uniform combinations — as well as never-before-seen combinations — will be seen with more regularity across the league.
The Philadelphia Eagles can wear their Kelly green uniforms nearly a quarter of the season if they wish. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers can be in the creamsicles more. And the Broncos can be in their 1977 throwbacks more often.
The changes come just months after the league extended its partnership with jersey-maker Nike in a deal that now stretches through 2038, as well as a few years after the league began allowing different helmets for teams.
“We extended our partnership with Nike, and so we’re working on some really fun things with these guys,” Renie Anderson, the NFL’s EVP and Chief Revenue Officer, told CBS Sports on Monday. “We think about the future, and the requests we get from clubs. We wanted to make sure that we’re flexible and we hear from clubs, a lot of it is what fans want, what players want, what coaches want. And so we wanted to provide some flexibility and we’re going to continue to monitor it. We’ll continue to get requests, and we’ll think about it, but we have to think about all 32 when we think about making any type of changes.”
Each team has what the NFL likes to call a closet. Each team has a “primary” section that consists of the usual home and away uniforms. Some teams have an alternate uniform (think Color Rush.) And then some teams have their throwbacks, or what the league calls “classic” uniforms.
The Kansas City Chiefs are one of few teams that have no alternative or throwback jerseys. The red and white are all the four-time Super Bowl champs have.
Other teams like the Panthers and Seahawks have several different jersey and uniform combinations (along with socks) that can be mixed and matched.
“It’s an added piece, which fans love because what we find is today 70% of jersey sales typically are your primary,” Anderson said. “But up to 30% are these alts or a classic combination, which by the way, they’re only worn a limited amount of time. So they’re indexing pretty high for fan engagement, which is awesome.”
Players get superstitious, and sometimes when they go on a winning streak in a certain uniform combination, the team wants to keep wearing it. The rule changes give some flexibility to that.
A secondary rule change is that teams can now wear their alternate pants in the playoffs. Previous teams could only wear the pants from the “primary” section of the closet in the playoffs.
Still, though, you won’t see an alternate or throwback jersey in the Super Bowl. The league still wants its teams to have its primary look in the Big Game.
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John Breech
