Away Teams Wearing White Uniforms is Stupid - Belly Up Sports (2024)

FAQs

Why does the away team wear white? ›

This pattern or practice became a thing in the 1950s to help audiences watching TV see the two teams (remember, black and white). Before that, teams would often wear their own colors, but say on a black and white TV, you have a green vs a blue team, you can't really see the difference.

“I think what our teams are telling us was that our fans wanted to see these different uniforms at home, and they were maybe sick of seeing their team in white every single game for 41 games. “The benefit, I guess you could say, is they get to see the wonderful colors of the 29 other teams come in.

White road uniforms gained prominence with the rise of television in the 1950s. A "white vs. colour" game was easier to follow in the black-and-white television era. According to Phil Hecken of uni-watch.com, "colour vs. colour" games were actually the norm until the mid-1950s.

Teams with similar colours (e.g. Detroit and Montreal) would need to make decisions about how to tell one another apart, but otherwise (e.g. Montreal and Toronto) it really didn't matter. In 1950, the league decided to standardize jersey colours, and decreed that the visiting team should wear white.

Instead, the home team in an NFL game chooses to wear either white or colored jerseys, and the visiting team has to wear the opposite. But while this format allows for the warm-weather strategy of wearing white at home, it also invites mischievous counter-strategies.

For the most part, NFL teams wear a darker jersey at home and road teams wear a white one.

Since the 2003–04 season, NHL teams typically wear the dark colour at home and the white for road games; there are occasional single-game exceptions. The only elements allowed by NHL rules to be interchangeable between the two sets of equipment are the pants and gloves.

Instead of electing to wear the traditional home whites, the Cs chose to roll with the road greens, despite the game being played on the parquet. Now, this may not seem consequential, but trust me, there is a level of seriousness that comes along with dressing appropriately for the moment.

Aside from the obvious need to distinguish one team from the other, conventional wisdom held that it was more difficult to properly launder uniforms while on a road trip, thus the "road grays" helped to hide accumulated soil.

The Isles obliged. The home white, dark road color scheme switched during the 2003-04 season and has remained that way now for nearly 20 years. Of course, the main catalyst was money, with the idea that the team would wear their alternate jerseys at home in front of their fans, leading to more sales.

Who decides what uniforms NFL teams wear? ›

By July 1, each club had to declare to NFL Football Operations which jersey color it wanted to wear (either white or the official team color) for each of its home games in the coming season. Visiting clubs must wear the opposite, based on the home team's choice.

While most of college football dons the dark jerseys at home (Georgia Tech is another exception), LSU has dared to be a little different. It started in 1958 when Tigers coach Paul Dietzel decided that his team should wear white at home.

A "hockey sweater" is terminology originating from the sport's earlier days when the game was predominantly played outside during winter and where the sweaters worn by players was a warm wool-knit covering.

Uniforms or kits

On the other hand, in baseball and basketball, the home team will typically choose to wear the lighter colored version of its uniform. Many teams have a home uniform which is mostly white and referred to as the "home whites".

For the most part, NFL teams wear a darker jersey at home and road teams wear a white one.

By wearing grey or another dark color the visiting team was better able to conceal the dirt and grass stains that had accumulated on their uniforms over the course of the series. The home team, having access to laundry facilities, was able to wear clean white uniforms each day, hence the term "home whites".

Away colours are a choice of coloured clothing used in Team Sports. It is used when 2 clubs clash colors, as 1 club needs to wear their away colours. An away kit usually consists of the same home kit but with reversed colors.

In the Super Bowl, one team wears a white road jersey the other team wears its home colors. This year, the 49ers will don a white road jersey and the Chiefs will be dressed in home red uniforms. The teams are wearing the same colors that they wore when they met in 2020 at Super Bowl LIV in Miami.