Arizona State's new pitchfork logo.
Very little in the sports world interests me less than uniforms. Colors. Helmets. Designs. Logos. Lettering. Nike. Adidas. Under Armour. All-white. All-black. All-red. Whatever.
Just play.
Just win.
But these things seem to be important to others, and certainly the Arizona State Sun Devils think so.
The athletic department has been running YouTube hints about changes, using the “It’s Time” slogan, deftly building curiosity and excitement in advance of Tuesday’s breathless announcement.
And now the word is out.
Arizona State has a new font: Sun Devil Bold. It has uniforms that are, well, unified, in their look across all sports. Included in that are all-blacks uniforms for football and basketball. The “Sparky” logo is gone from the football helmets, replaced by a pitchfork pointed sideways.
ASU wants everyone to “Fear the Fork.”
Athletic director Lisa Love described the new logo as “a pitchfork with an attitude.”
I’m sure this is all good to sell some more shorts, T-shirts and jerseys. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, Doug Haller of the Arizona Republic tweets that “ASU typically brings in $1 million a year in merchandise revenue. They hope to double that over the next few years with these changes.”
ASU ran a very nice marketing campaign, and — again, although I don’t really care — I think the new color combinations and designs look pretty good. But what do I know? It’s a shame an original like Sparky is gone from the sides of the football helmets, but everything eventually changes (Penn State excluded).
A look at ASU's new football uniforms.
For those of you, much more into these things, what do you think? (See more photos of the new uniforms on ASU athletics Facebook page)
Mostly, I think it is kind of funny that when you go Arizona State’s official athletic department’s page in search of info on the re-branding (you can find it here) you find a certain season-long scoreboard just below the main item.
Perhaps everything else is just a fashion show:
(Also, on Monday, Washington State announced new looks for the Cougars.)