Neil is joined by John Gibbons, Steve Graves and Rory Smith. The four talk about this week’s Hillsborough hearing, the kit kerfuffle, the Chelsea question and Neil and Jihn find out from Rory how transfer stories are made.
With music from 1902 and Lumin Bells, expect a journey from nothing to talk about to far too much.
Direct link to CITYTALK: VAGUE PROMISES
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I’m in American. I’m American. I think the notion that ugly jerseys sell better seems crazy to me. That’s simply not the case here. And i’m not simply talking about overly bright or something but flat hideous like our away shirts. At least here in the U.S. the coolest looking jerseys sell the best.
As for who has final say on the shirt design i’d be RIDICULOUSLY surprised if the club lacks final say. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, 1000% the New York Yankees have final say on their uniform design from year to year, Nobody is messing with “Yankees Pinstripes”, Same goes for the other major team sports. Note i’m slightly ignoring MLS because as a young league most teams don’t have set traditions that are as fiercly held as the other leagues here. But i can tell you nobody but the Boston Redsox have final say on the Red Sox Jersey except the Red Sox. If Liverpool don’t have the same control it’s simply a product of ineptness and poor planning and possibly a stupid belief that uglier clothes would sell better or you need a new look to sell.
As for the idea that you need to change the jersey every season or sales will drop I can tell you in the U.S. that’s totally not the case. Consider the fact that the NFL jersey’s outsell all other sports here and their jerseys almost never change. I lived in San Francisco, For like two years they jersey had a black shadow around the number. That was considered a big change. They recently simply changed the angle of a stripes on the sleeve but that’s about it. And by change in angle i’m talking it went from 90 degrees to 85 degrees. That is it’s miniscule. The colors are exactly the same, the font, the proportions etc. Consider Boston red Sox, their uniform have been essentially the same since the 1930s save 1974. The And you can go through most teams and see the jerseys don’t change and i can tell you merchandises sells extremely well, especially for clubs in “major media markets” (read big cities with lots of people). Hockey is no different. The Chicago Blackhawks Jerseys are damn near the same for 30 years. Sure, there’s occasional jersey changes, but nothing remotely as drastic as you see with Liverpool. People utterly freak out when their sacred jerseys get changed. In fact, you’ll notice that there’s no advertising on NFL, NBA, and MLB jerseys because they feel it’s sacrilege.