A tweet about the Utah Jazz's color palette went viral in 2021, noting how hilarious the wide variety of colors was for one team. When Ryan Smith became the new owner of the Jazz, it was important to try to find an identity, and the Utah Jazz built a new identity from the ground up. First order of business, build up one specific brand. With a color scheme of black, white, and yellow, the Jazz began to work on their new look.
Can we quickly have a moment of silence for the highlighter-yellow icon uniforms? Eyeballs across the nation rejoiced upon notice that the neon jerseys would be retired for the second half of the Utah Jazz season. The drastic overhaul of Utah's image was surprising and met with plenty of pushback, but in a few years, will we miss that era of bright and bold Utah Jazz?
The initial response from NBA fans was that these may be the worst uniforms in league history. With bland design and cornea-searing colors, many fans didn't find anything positive to say about the new look in Utah.
The New Utah Jazz jerseys might be some of the worst I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/6jPKuwP0bW
— NBA Memes (@NBAMemes) July 20, 2022
There's no denying it: these new jerseys were a huge miss. I think that new owner, Ryan Smith, knew this before officially releasing the new uniforms. Upon negative reception when the new look was accidentally leaked in April 2022, I believe that they knew they needed to add something to soften the blow of these less-than-stellar threads, and that was the catalyst for the "Purple is Back" campaign.
Purple returning to Utah's color palette was a breath of fresh air for fans who were drowning in the chaos of the roster's destruction paired with the hideous rebrand. While the black and vivid yellow jerseys weren't well-received, the purple uniforms were unanimously loved across the NBA. I found it interesting that the team's marketing was focused on the return of purple when they had just introduced 3 other jerseys simultaneously. Utah using their fan-favorite purple jerseys to distract from the controversy is reminiscent of Spencer Shay in his apartment with an ostrich and a smoothie giving the following response to a vague question. Whatcha got there? A smoothie.
Now, nearly 2 years removed from the Utah Jazz rebrand in 2022, have Jazz fans changed their tune about the "new-look Jazz"?
Years after the rebrand, how do you feel about Utah's uniforms?
— The J-Notes (@TheJNotes) February 22, 2024
Doesn't seem like it.
Of course, not every fan hates these uniforms, and with the extinction of the burning yellow jerseys eminent, it seems that Utah is listening to their fans' voices and making plans to adapt and change. It's poetic that while the Jazz work on building a flawed roster into a championship contender, they're also rebuilding their brand. It's a work in progress in every way, but I'm optimistic about the future, even during the dreary present.