Fanatics is ruining professional sports uniforms

Fanatics, a US-based sports memorabilia manufacturer and retailer, has completely taken over the sports merchandise world. The company currently operates the official league store for every major US sports league – the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, PGA Tour, NCAA, UFC, Nascar, and even WWE official stores boast loudly on their front page that they are each ‘a Fanatics Experience’. The company has been expanding internationally as well, as they also operate the official store for Formula One and several European soccer clubs and leagues. 

For the past several years, it’s been practically impossible to purchase officially licensed gear that isn’t directly from Fanatics or from a subsidiary owned by the company. Fanatics’ stranglehold on the industry has led to completely uninspired and poor quality gear that fans wanting to sport their favorite team’s merch have practically no choice but to buy.

To make matters worse, Fanatics has made a successful push in recent years to weasel its way into producing not just gear for fans, but uniforms for players to wear in games. Fanatics has gained a lot of negative attention recently after they rode Nike’s coattails in their deal to become the producer for on-field MLB uniforms, which has backfired tremendously as fans are getting their first look at the company’s uniform redesign for the 2024 season. Major League Baseball has always placed a huge emphasis – more so than any other American professional sports league – on tradition, and the jerseys they’ve debuted this season have taken a massive step backwards from over 100 years of uniform history.

The new looks are league-wide, and contain tiny lettering, cheap-looking logo patches, and see-through pants. Fans and players alike have protested the change, with both parties agreeing that they look like cheap ‘Made in China’ knockoffs. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred gave perhaps the worst possible response to the backlash, saying that the jerseys are ‘different’ (no shit) and that they “are going to be really popular” (are you sure?). 

Fanatics isn’t stopping with baseball, though, as they’re also slated to take over NHL’s official player jerseys starting next season after Adidas decided to stop making NHL jerseys. Fanatics has said that they don’t plan on making any noticeable changes to the NHL jerseys once they take over, but fans have been upset with the change since even before the MLB debacle. As anger from MLB fans over the jersey changes continues to grow, fans have put even more pressure on the NHL to back out of the deal, but the odds of the NHL doing anything about the situation are about the same as any of these leagues hosting an All-Star game that’s actually enjoyable to watch.