NBA City Jerseys and the Dilution of Brand Identity

As another batch of jerseys are released, one has to wonder if honoring a city has started to dilute the brands of the NBA’s franchises

Most companies have a color palette that they internally associate with their brand. Consider Google and its multitude of apps that may be installed on your smartphone right now. Almost all of their apps include their specific shade of blue, yellow, green, and red. The use of these colors is also present throughout their marketing and other elements to help reinforce brand identity alongside other visual elements and fonts. Most companies do this, and for good reason. You want customers to know that what they are looking at is coming from your company, to help build an association.

Major corporations aren’t the only entities that abide by these branding rules, sports teams tend to do the same. For instance, if you see Midnight Green and Gotham Green on an NFL field you would know which one belonged to the Philadelphia Eagles and other to the New York Jets. I think about these sort of brand associations as the NBA has rolled out its latest iteration of its City Jerseys, yearly changing alternate jerseys that are intended to be an homage to the city a team plays in. The league has been rolling out these jerseys since 2017, but it seems that these jerseys have departed from team colors in the name of…