The reason IMO is that they use Rockets because people will know that it's the NBA team and by putting Houston on the uniform, it's hard to tell what sport they are representing.
I think they look good, especially the home jerseys. Lets just be glad we don't have to look at those pajamas anymore.
A couple other things... They do have the metallic look to them. You can't see it in the photos, but if you saw the material, you would easily see the metallic look. It just gets wiped out in photographs, unfortunately. As for the agreement, yes, the Rockets are locked into a 30-year lease with the Sports Authority. It is a pretty tough one as well. They really took their time with that clause. My guess is that Les won't even own the team 30 years from now. In the last 30, we've been through, what, 3 owners? Believe me, I expressed my concern over the name on the jersey numerous times. I told them that fans would be PISSED if it said ROCKETS instead of HOUSTON and that they should have at least ONE jersey that had HOUSTON on it. I even said that it was the VERY least they could do for a city that built them a new home. For them, I am sure this is all about marketing. While I won't say they are going to spend more time and effort marketing the team in China because I honestly don't know, I will say that any businessperson would be foolish to not make every effort to woo more than a billion potential fans. That may have been key in the decsion to put ROCKETS on the jerseys instead of HOUSTON. Still, it is frustrating for me as I know it is for a lot of fans. I know that this is the decision they have made and the direction they are choosing to go. They aren't going to change now. However, I find the change to a new uniform without HOUSTON on it in the same year as they move into a new publically-funded building a little insulting.
the red that topfive used in his pic looks alot closer to the mobley pic than what eastbay has. it's possible that they just had the white jerseys and the photoshop job was done just a little off for the road jerseys. it seems like the red on the new court is what we'd see on the jersey.
The road jersey looks slightly pinkish-red, whereas the home jersey is a deeper red that more closely resembles the red they used for the court/logo. So, maybe/hopefully the red on the road jerseys will be deeper since a pic (depending on the quality) doesn't always give justice to the object. And I agree, the jersey topfive tweaked is what I was thinking too.
They look sweet! I personally prefer the home jersey because the white color with that red sticking out makes it look very "clean" and smooth. The away jersey kinda looks like other teams jerseys. The color theme kind of looks worn out because of other teams have used this type of color combo red/silver/white/or blue. Overall, I am deeply satisfied. Go ROX! itzIce
<img src="http://home.earthlink.net/~jeffeychives/stevienew.jpg"> Those home uniforms are probably the coolest I've seen for any team! Looks pretty good in action too. And space age is definitely the look the Rox should be going for.
Yeah from what i have heard it's the material that makes them look like that. They are using a shimmering style fabric i believe and the flash of the camera probably made it it look more light then it really is. In the Mobley Pic he is far away so the light didn't have such an effect on it as it does in this close up.
Hey Jeff: I've heard a couple of things about an alternate jersey possibly being made in the next couple of years. If that were to happen, could that jersey have "Houston" written on it instead of Rockets?
Just spent a looong time catching up on this thread. In no particular order ... Those are the real jerseys. The ones in the Cuttino photo were earlier versions -- the arcs on the sides were very different, and some other changes were made around the collar, as well as a few minor details. For the record, I still do NOT have an actual copy of the jersey in hand. I will by the end of this week. If I had one, we'd have had our unveiling already. We would've liked to unveil the jersey weeks ago -- there's really no business reason for holding back except that we don't have the jerseys. Eastbay was not supposed to put anything up on their site until after their unveiling. My guess is that it will pulled by Monday afternoon and then put back up in a week or so when we are able to unveil. (Hey, at least we still get to be the first to show the shorts, right? ) Me, I found out about it when one of our local reporters called me while I was at a used book store stocking up on kids books that were on sale. Heh. The actual color is very red; the photo Eastbay is using is somewhat washed out. Topfive's retouch is actually closer to the real thing. The material does have a shine to it, but it is not dazzle -- it's a next generation material. Only the Warriors have it. It wasn't the league's call to put Rockets on the uniforms. It was ours. We heard the comments from some fans about Houston. We're also familiar with the fan bases for the Bulls, Celtics, Lakers, Spurs, and all the other teams that use the team name on both versions of the jersey. There's never a peep in those markets about the team name being a slap to the fans. In fact, we think those are some of the most highly regarded, well-respected uniform designs in the league. We're proud of the name Rockets, and our fans are, too. If this is a leftover issue from the days before the referendum, when people were afraid the team might move -- we're not going anywhere. Houston is a great city. We have a great building. A great fan base. We just want to make sure we are building our identity, in Houston, across the country, and around the world. It's a lot easier to build it when you're consistent. This was a very important issue for us, and, with no disrespect to the fans who would like Houston on the jersey, it drove our decision. So both uniforms say the same thing -- just the colors are different. And for whoever said that we did "Rockets" to be more generic -- I say this with respect, but I'm not sure I understand. There are several organizations that answer to "Houston." Only one that answers to "Rockets." From a marketing standpoint, "Rockets" is by far the more specific, less generic term. The warmups will say Houston, for what that is worth. And the full logo mark is "Houston Rockets." And, before I forget -- even though we didn't want them to leak out this way, it was great to see all the positive reactions to the jersey. We put a LOT of time into it. Getting that kind of initial reaction here on the board, with all the die-hard crazies, was great to see. Thank you. Tim
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/2111541 Sept. 20, 2003, 4:48PM Rockets' new uniforms get sneak peek on Web By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Very simple. Very different. And very, very red. The long-awaited unveiling of the Rockets' new uniforms slipped out on the Internet last week before the Rockets could orchestrate their debut. But with two arcs circling the sleeves and lettering to match the "R" logo, the Rockets did not need a catwalk for their new red and silver look to prove a radical departure from eight seasons of stripes and a teeth-gritting cartoon rocket. "I'm very happy with them. I think they're great," Rockets vice president for marketing Tim McDougall said. "We had a couple goals going in. One was color. Color is the first thing people see and identify when they look at uniforms. We took a lot of care to see what fans identify with. Red was color people identify when they think of the Rockets. We started with that. The second goal was to have a clean, timeless and unique look to the Rockets design. I think we've got that." Other features of the uniforms include a fabric specifically designed for the Rockets uniform; a harsh, slashing font; the use of the team name, rather than 'Houston' on the front of the road uniforms. The primary goal, McDougall said, was to settle on a design that would "appeal over a long period of time. "There are different things you can do, some to make people immediately like uniforms but that wear out over time," McDougall said. "We wanted something, a design, to wear for a long time. The most important thing was, `What works best over the long haul?' " But if the Rockets got what they wanted in the design of their new look, they lost the chance of debuting the uniforms when an online sporting goods company posted photos of the jerseys and began taking orders. There have been leaks of the uniforms throughout the summer. But most were either prototypes used for commercial shoots -- with thin, rather than the widening stripes around the arms -- or depictions generated for computer games. Several previous glimpses of the uniforms were in violation of signed non-disclosure agreements and quickly removed from Web sites. The small sections of the uniforms seen on billboards around Houston, on the Rockets' Web site and on posters distributed by the Chronicle were artistic renditions never actually worn by the players. The Rockets are still waiting for Reebok to supply a set of uniforms in order to unveil them, but they tentatively have planned an event for next week to show all team merchandise. "I guess I could buy a couple and launch it that way," McDougall said. "It's frustrating to some extent. We'd love to have gotten it earlier in the summer. But ... the most important thing is to get it right for the long haul. I'll make that tradeoff any day. We'll launch sometime when we get the uniforms in house a little over a week from now." Last week's online unveiling of the uniforms did not include the shorts, but it is not difficult when viewing the shirts to imagine the rest of the uniform. "The shorts have the same color patterns," McDougall said. "The arcing pattern is repeated on the side of the shorts, but smaller of course, and the logo is on the side of a leg, edged to front a little bit." The decision to continue to use the word "Rockets" rather than "Houston" on the road jersey -- emotionally debated when the Rockets revised their uniforms in 1995 -- was to help with branding the team and its style. "We've looked at it," McDougall said. "It's been that way for awhile. We will have `Houston' on the warmups as the team comes out. A lot of teams use the city name on the road, but not all teams. Some good examples to follow, the Bulls, Celtics and Lakers for example, are three fairly storied franchises, and have remained top sellers as players come and go. "We're very proud of Houston, but at same time, we decided `let's keep team name up front.' We think it's the way to brand the team correctly." McDougall said much of the delay in designing and producing the uniforms was the by-product of the fabric that he said was specifically designed for the Rockets' uniform. "That took the most time and caused the biggest delays," McDougall said. "The problem with red is the fabric always bleeds. We had issues with that. If we were going with red, we could backtrack to a fabric that was not the ultimate in performance. We took a lot of time, a real lot of time, to come up with a fabric with the best performance, and best appearance, with a lot of shine, also non-bleed. From a playability standpoint and appearance standpoint we created, working with Reebok, a fabric just for this uniform. "We spent a lot of time on (the font). We really settled on `R' icon first, and wanted a letter font with that. We didn't want something too out there, too tricky. That could wear out on you. We wanted something stylized too." The style was largely created by Eiko Ishioka, a celebrated Hollywood costume designer, then honed by Rockets, Reebok and NBA officials. "What struck her most about basketball is it's a very vertical sport," McDougall said. "She wanted to capture that with something for athletes that are sleek and strong and the sport's upward motion and used the arcs. With the name of the team, Rockets, it's a ... really good fit." Now all they have to do is get a few of their very own.
Good . Good. I'll buy one and will wear it all around the world! Now if only they were not that damn expensive .
Ya know, its so frickin obvious that Feigen browses this site often, yet, he'll never bring himself to credit this site for information he obtained directly from here.
if you made that gold into a more metallic color that would be awesome... but then we'd be accused of ripping off the cavs oh well, they're in the East, screw em!
Very true, why does he not quote Clutchcity.net as the source? I was thinking the same thing. Perhaps it is not something Clutch is looking for? They know each other.
I think he might lose his job if every other article he ran had "source clutchcity.net" at the bottom of it. :\
I think what he meant was that it was easier to market the idea of a "Rocket" rather than a "Houston." But I still think that marketing the city of Houston is a better idea. Didn't you ever wonder why Miami, NY, Chicago, LA and Dallas get more clout on an international level? Don't you think that Houston should be up there in that list too?
