The Oregon Ducks revealed yet another new design for its uniforms for this upcoming football season. Aside from marketing and the now 80 uniform combinations the Ducks can now deploy, they also are 25% lighter than last year's. Key changes made are all the uniform tops will now have the wings on the shoulder pad area and the Ducks have added another non-school color in gray that they're coining as "steel". A carbon-gray helmet will replace the lightning yellow helmet and the steel bottoms will be worn with the alternative white tops.
So, from a Beaver fan's perspective how do we view all this? Yes, it's just another uniform change and more money poured through UO's athletic department thanks to Uncle Phil. It's a great marketing tool however I think it's very unnecessary and a foolish way to spend money. Personally, I think it's gotten out of hand. Do the new uniforms look cool? Absolutely. As much as I can't stand the Ducks, I have to say I really do like the look of these new ones, especially the "carbon" helmet. I don't like how they're incorporating black and gray (Duck fans, these aren't your colors) but if it looks good with the green and yellow, then why not, right?
Backing up a little bit here, why do I think it's gotten out of hand? Well, UO is going to use the argument that it's a great marketing tool and that it has its performance benefits. First of all, Chip Kelly said it best in today's conference: they were a 10-win team and finished no. 9 in the nation. That is your best marketing tool. You can have the weirdest, ugliest, or most unique uniforms in the nation but if you're not winning football games then no one cares. Actually, it probably makes you look worse when you do lose. Whether you agree with me or not, I do promise you this: a high school football player would much rather play for a winning college football team than a losing team with a good fashion statement.
Now for the second part. Utility. Nike is priding itself on the ability to create cutting-edge performance enhancing uniforms. That sounds cool. But let's take a little bit of a closer look here. Nike claims they shaved these new uniforms down from 7.46 oz. to 5.5 oz. Cutting-edge performance enhancing uniforms? You think a Pac-10 caliber football player is really going to notice that 1.96 oz of difference? Now I get why they used that 25% figure. That sounds a lot better than a seemingly unnoticeable difference of under 2 oz. Cutting-edge? Disagree.
I will admit, as stated earlier, I really like the new "steel" color. That carbon helmet is just downright awesome and yes, from a Beaver fan's perspective is there any envy involved? Of course. I can admit that. Those helmets are cool. Really cool. But as I bring this blog entry to a close, let me ask you Duck fans this one question: Is this something you'd want your athletic department to spend money on if these weren't donated? I know it does give UO some more spotlight time but from an outsider's perspective it's getting old and out of hand. Why out of hand? Nike is giving UO thousands of dollars worth of new uniforms while departmental budgets are shrinking, professors/teachers are losing their jobs or taking cuts, and the economy is still in a slump, significantly affecting the university and its academics. I don't just call that out of hand. I call that absolutely ridiculous.
Matt:
ReplyDeleteBeing the testing ground for Uncle Phil is a long standing tradition started with his mentor and partner Bill Bowerman in the 60's
Oregon is enjoyig being on the cutting edge of sports gear, shoes, and equipment as the partnership with NIKE is trully a family connection. Yes it is free and it does get plenty of comments from the media.
With no real football tradition Oregon will place 9 Coaches with Oregon connections on Nick Dashal's top 30 Pac 10 Coaches:
http://www.bustersports.com/blog/pac-10-news/continuum/best-of-pac-10-coaches
Cas HC-
McKay (will be named number 1)
Robinson (will be named number 4)
Snyder
Brooks HC -
Toledo
Bellotti
Bellotti HC -
Koetter
Tedford
With Oregon and the Pac 10 getting little coverage on the east coast the Uniforms keeps the Oregon Name and the Pac 10 confernce out there or people on the east coast to think about!
Remember Uncle Phil has reached over and helped OSU when OSU donors ave failed to step up. Just ask Coach Casey!
From a life long resident prospective:
ReplyDelete"" I know it does give UO some more spotlight time but from an outsider's perspective it's getting old and out of hand. Why out of hand? Nike is giving UO thousands of dollars worth of new uniforms while departmental budgets are shrinking, professors/teachers are losing their jobs or taking cuts, and the economy is still in a slump, significantly affecting the university and its academics. I don't just call that out of hand. I call that absolutely ridiculous""
When you look for who is to blame for rising tuition, budget cuts and Instructor pay..point it at the right people. Next year State support at almost all socalled Oregon Public Universities will drop to under 10% of the schools operating budget. Oregon and OSU have reached out to raise over 2 Billion dollars of donor money to build, rebuild, and maintain programs. Your legislature and the Taxpayers do not support public education and our public Universities are basically Private colleges.
Untill the WTO fiasco Uncle Phi put more money into education then he did in Athletics..the Adminstration and students made a poor choice back then.
Successful Athletics at Oregon and now OSU are driving the academic fundraising bus as the success keeps both schools in the public eye!
NIKE is simply using Oregon as a Marketing tool and spending is not unjust in todays economic times. It's actually cheaper for NIKE to do it this way.
Want to continue commentary on public education do it understanding what the real problem is!! The legislature and the Taxpayer other wise understand we have no real public Universities in Oregon!!
Thank you for those insightful comments. That was the first time I've ever heard anyone refer to the University of Oregon and Oregon State University as private institutions. I didn't write this entry to get into discussions over state spending, the power of the taxpayer's dollar, or the state legislature. This is a sports blog. I was simply trying to say their athletic spending has gotten out of hand and simply ridiculous. This spending, has absolutely nothing to do with the public university system of Oregon.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that though, I do have a couple of points to make. First, I won't speak on behalf of UO, but I will speak on behalf of OSU, my alma mater. Oregon State is a research-based university. It is through this research and continuously updated knowledge that programs are built and maintained through grants and other state and government funding. At least at OSU, these make up the majority of the operating budget of educational programs, not private donations.
Secondly, I'm not sure I quite understand your argument about university support. Above, you quote: "Next year State support at almost all socalled Oregon Public Universities will drop to under 10% of the schools operating budget. Oregon and OSU have reached out to raise over 2 Billion dollars of donor money to build, rebuild, and maintain programs." First of all, I'd like to see where you got your $2 billion figure. What was the time period on that? Secondly, Didn't I say in my closing argument that with the budget/support shrinking, I think it's ludicrous that the athletic department is reaping the benefits of receiving thousands of free dollars in uniforms. Your statement further strengthens the point I'm trying to make here because instead of new uniforms, that money could easily be going to education. I've known several UO professors and/or people involved with UO who they themselves have attested to just how disgusted they are with how UO spends money without any limits. It's not my words, it's theirs.
And speaking of, let's talk about these uniforms. Are they really cutting edge, and even more importantly, were they necessary? A decreased weight of under 2 oz. Unnoticeable. Instead of diamond plating, they'll have wings. Instead of a yellow helmet, they'll have a gray one. I guess one can argue it's marketing, but the true marketing tool is the number of W's in the win column. You think Gameday comes out to see UO's uniforms?
So much money has been foolishly spent in the name of "marketing" at UO. Go to New York and ask people where Joey Harrington (pending they even know who he is) went to college. Ask them which university is the Beavers, and which is the Ducks. They don't know nor do they even care. The true barrier to east coast exposure is the fact that "primetime" out here is 10pm out there. Wins get you the most exposure. Just ask Boise State or Utah.
As for Phil Knight putting more money into academics than athletics, that is the first time I've heard that as well. I guess I'm not sure what you mean by the "WTO fiasco." You mean the one where people came out (including administration, professors, teachers...the town of Eugene) and publicly stated that they don't support Nike's ethically-challenged business practices of sweat shops and cheap labor? A poor decision to speak out about that? I guess people were uncomfortable with the fact that UO was reaping the benefits of millions and millions of dollars at the hands of an undeveloped county. Anyway, that's another subject. In terms of present day, I find it very hard that he's given more to UO's academics than athletics after spearheading the Autzen expansion, Matthew Knight Arena, and the countless amounts of dollars he's given them through Nike paraphernalia, even before the "WTO fiasco." Yes, I do remember the large sum of money he gave to the Stanford business school of $105 million dollars but he so far has donated over an estimated $200 million to athletics, not including a $100 million donation to the University of Oregon Athletics Legacy Fund.
ReplyDeleteI know the question you're thinking in your head right now. Well if there was an Uncle Phil for OSU then I wouldn't be writing an article like this. Probably not. I admit that. If an athletic department has access to unlimited funds, then yes it's pretty darn hard to complain. But I wrote this simply to point out that UO's spending habits, IN MY OPINION, have gotten way out of hand and are significantly inconsistent with the rest of the nation's. While athletic departments and academics continue to struggle nationwide (see Ohio State) UO, or Phil Knight I should say, obviously puts sports first, education second. It has nothing to do with the Oregon university system.
One last thing, I wasn't clear on your point with Nick Dashal's top-30 coaches. Those coaches aren't being honored because of the uniforms their teams wore. Some aren't even being honored for their tenure at UO. However, they are being honored for their wins and accomplishments they made as head coaches. What exactly does that have to do with uniforms, athletic department spending, or Phil Knight?
Matt: First, you should do some research on Phil's philanthropy. He's donated millions to Stanford's academics as well as Oregon's. Besides, what business is it of yours how Phil Knight spends his money? That's doesn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I believe the "WTO fiasco" remark refers to the WRC, or Workers' Rights Consortium, which UO joined, then withdrew from, to appease Phil.
Third, Oregon is home to Warsaw School of Sports Marketing, and as sucvh their sports programs are a lab for innovative thinking. It only makes sense that they would pursue new designs and technologies in all sports.
Fourth, do you think Oregon State re-uses helmets and uniforms season after season? All players at all major universities receive new equipment every season, and Nike subsidizes most of it. The design may not have changed (and BTW the Beavers have changed their unis four or five times in the past decade or so) but the uniforms are styill new every year.
I don't know what the design costs are for Oregon's new threads, but the maerials and manufacturing costs are probably about the same as any other teams' (except helmets of course).
The way that I look at the Uniforms is that the University of Oregon must really be ashamed of actually wearing their own colors. Now, about half of their uniforms have very little of their school colors on them. I don't include white on this, because it's the standard away color.
ReplyDeleteBut Your colors are green and gold. Noble colors, people. But now, you seem to be ashamed of those colors, since you now have 2 (Steel and Black) out of 3 non-white pants which have little of your school color on them, and 2 out of 4 (Steel and Black) non-white jerseys, and a whopping 3 (White, Carbon, Black) out of 4 of your helmets (since helmets usually aren't part of the home-away scheme, I'm including White as a helmet color). What are you ashamed of? Do you not like Green and Gold?
I'd much rather see the Ducks actually start reconginzing their brand ID as something for something other than redicilous amounts of uniforms. I'd like to see them go down to 1 helmet. The green helmet is one of the best looking in College Football. I don't understand why they want to go away from that helmet by introducing Black, White, and Carbon. I'd like them to actually wear their college colors, rather than looking like they're ashamed of them by introducing "steel" and black into their color scheme.
As far as OSU reusing uniforms, helmets, I think that they do reuse uniforms. As far as anything else, I'd say that new players get new uniforms, and then they replace uniforms when they get a new design.
ReplyDeleteMatt
ReplyDeleteYou know at Oregon the only Taxpayer money in the AD comes from the Oregon lottery (given to all schools in Oregon) and Oregon has also put money back into the University's General fund above and beyond the debt they owed in the 80's. Oregon Coaches also donate some of their pay into places like the lirary as well. Prior to the 1996 Cotton Bowl (so you have a date) Most of Uncle Phil's money went to the library, the law school, and other academic projects. It wasn't till after that Cotton Bowl Uncle Phil made major financial moves with the AD.
Now OSU AD take the lottery money and 2.5 million out of e schools general fund each year. WOSU used bonded money to expand Parker stadium and paid off over 10 million dollars in debt, by basically making that debt part of the Parker expandation financial package.
The state of Oregon reduced funding to Oregon schools by 10% this session and with those cuts reduced the amount of money the State provides University funding and caused what could be 2 seperate 10% increases in tuition over the next two years.
When you take a sports blog to complain about the other sides moves...have a true understanding of financial and marketing history. Oregon usesthe uniforms to keep their name ou in front and in positon to get maybe a better recruit or two, maybe a better bowl game, and find new donors looking forsomething differant. The Coach's story was to show Oregn has more football tradition then it gets credit for and still we do these uniform deals to counter that non-traditional school arguement when we goup against the big boys!
More later