MLB's Dumb Uniform Scandal

How 'quality control' joined the sports lexicon, c/o Nike and Fanatics

In all the handwringing about the declining state of baseball over the course of the last few decades, you know what I can’t remember ever coming up as a problem? The uniforms.

I’m not used to thinking of this as an issue. As far as I’m aware, the threads are something baseball’s historically gotten right. Admittedly, they’re aided by that history. Classic though they may be, you probably wouldn’t put a brand new expansion team in Yankees pinstripes, y’know? And I wish we were talking about the expansion cities, because that really seems to be in the offing.

But we can’t. Instead, we have to talk about these weird toilet-paper uniforms that Nike has delivered to MLB by way of Fanatics.

For those catching up, here’s the situation.

Nike has been providing the league’s official uniforms since they signed a 10-year deal with MLB in 2019, but this year, they’ve made some changes.

Those changes have not been received well. Among the complaints:

“I think that the performance wear might feel nice,” one veteran position player [told the Baltimore Banner], “but the look of it is like a knockoff jersey from T.J.Maxx.”

Harsh, unnamed veteran position player! What makes you say that?

Oh. I see. Maybe it’s the see-through pants.

I have to hand it to SB Nation for this headline, which put things more bluntly:

“The terrible Fanatics MLB uniforms are going to put the balls in baseball”

Now, could you spin this? Well, I’m a professional, so of course I can.

It’s bold! It’s transgressive! It’s a commentary! Done.

Oh. There’s more?

When the Mariners’ Michael Chavis posted a picture of his jankety #10 jersey — the misaligned 1 and 0 do seem like an oversight, yes — Fanatics customer service responded, apparently thinking he was just some random dude who’d bought one online:

I think you just might be onto something there, Kyle.

Now, let’s point some fingers. Who did this?

Prior to the latest Nike deal, MLB had a longstanding deal with Majestic Athletic going back to 1982. Nike wasn’t the official jersey manufacturer, but they did make a bunch of licensed gear for fans, so that’s a relationship that’s been around for a while.

Plenty of stuff happened in the intervening 34 years, but we’re gonna skip ahead to 2016, when a lot started happening. This is confusing, so bear with me. First, MLB signed a deal with Under Armour and Fanatics to replace Majestic as the official supplier, starting in 2020.

Then, in 2017, MLB announced that it was moving up the takeover date by a year. Shortly after that announcement, Fanatics bought out Majestic.

In 2018, shortly before Under Armour was set to start providing MLB its jerseys, Under Armour pulled out of the deal due to money problems. The company wasn’t what it used to be, and still isn’t. Out they went.

MLB then pivoted to Nike, but Fanatics stuck around for the switch in partners, and those are the three parties involved now.

Now, to be clear, there were some see-through pants lols last year too. They didn’t get the same level of attention, but Nike and Fanatics started moving to thinner, more breathable uniforms well before the last month.

What seems to be happening now is a reaction to ever-lower quality.

Fanatics has never enjoyed a reputation for making nice stuff. Fans have long bemoaned how they achieved an effective monopoly over the sports apparel industry by producing a ton of cheap screen-printed crap. Bad reviews abound. Misprints, bad fits, etc.

CEO Michael Rubin, perhaps best known as the douchelord behind the Hamptons White Party, suffers an accordingly tough reputation.

This guy? Unlikable? Stop that.

When Nike outsources its production to Fanatics, they cosign the QC issues. There’s blame to go around — Fanatics probably isn’t going rogue to make anything far afield of Nike’s given specs — but it belongs to both of them.

The players’ union has already gotten involved to complain, while the commish, Rob Manfred, has essentially told players to get used to it. He makes one fair point — "In baseball, any new initiative, there's going to be some negative feedback” — but this new initiative just appears to be a bad one so far.

So far. This is still fixable. I don’t doubt that the performance fabric they’re touting is actually more forgiving than the heavier jerseys of old. But I also take the players — the ones who aren’t paid ambassadors for Nike — seriously when they say the fit’s off.

I suspect Manfred’s tone will shift a bit in the days and weeks to come. Others, like Darren Rovell, think similarly:

Guess we’ll see, but they might want to get on that. My tailor takes his time. He’s a pretty ornery Polish man around the corner from my apartment, so, your mileage may vary, but I’ll take him over Fanatics any day. Maybe I can put them in touch? Problem solved.

Also, This:

• Speaking of quality control — comments from Anthony Rendon this week, in which he said baseball “has never been a top priority for me” struck me in two different tones.

  • First, I’m generally for the acknowledgement that these are games and the people who play them are just doing their jobs. This isn’t anything actually serious, and that can be good to remember.

  • Second, call me old-fashioned, but I’m generally for people trying to do their jobs well. I’ve never been all that convinced that Rendon gives his job much effort, despite a world of talent. This doesn’t help that impression.
    

• And speaking of effort, how about that NBA All-Star Game, huh? What a joke that is. I don’t know if any sports get this right anymore, so maybe this just reflects a cultural shift away from athletes of all stripes caring about these exhibitions, but man. That was rough. I don’t think football should attempt to make anything legitimately competitive out of the Pro Bowl, but I have to figure basketball can do a better job than this. You need some tone-setters, though. A guy or two who’s willing to go all Jordan on his peers is what it’ll take.
  

• FuboTV is suing ESPN, Fox and WBD over their recently announced joint venture in sports streaming, accusing them of acting to stifle competition. Antitrust, people!

  • “Each of these companies has consistently engaged in anticompetitive practices that aim to monopolize the market, stifle any form of competition, create higher pricing for subscribers and cheat consumers from deserved choice,” FuboTV CEO David Gandler said in a statement. “By joining together to exclusively reserve the rights to distribute a specialized live sports package, we believe these corporations are erecting insurmountable barriers that will effectively block any new competitors from entering the market.”
    

• And two more tangentially related notes, but make it Big Tech:

  • Apple launched Apple Sports, a free scoreboard app presumably meant to shoulder in on the ESPN app;

  • And Amazon is reportedly shelling out $120M to stream a single NFL playoff game next year. Big tech, big money.