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#1
BigD

BigD

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#1
My friend at work is trying to get me into basketball. I never really watched it before. Why do we wear white uniforms at home abut orange uniforms away?

To me it was really weird.
 
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#3
#3
BigD said:
My friend at work is trying to get me into basketball. I never really watched it before. Why do we wear white uniforms at home abut orange uniforms away?

To me it was really weird.
Click to expand...

That’s from black and white TVs. Home teams wore white in baseball and basketball. Football used to wear the same colors home/away (when few games were on TV). TN had to get white jerseys for the 1969 Cotton Bowl versus Texas.
 
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#4
#4
Goes back to the days of black and white television broadcasts, the home teams uniforms would be the lighter shades, visitors would be darker, color television doesn't need that distiction in contrast
 
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#7
#7
joevols89 said:
A lot sports are like that. Football is the weird one.
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This. Most other sports the home team is white, but it's kind of becoming a mixed bag. NHL usually wears colors at home but in the past they used to wear white. NBA and MLB are still usually white at home but with alternate uniforms and jerseys it's not as regular anymore.
 
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#11
#11
BigD said:
My friend at work is trying to get me into basketball. I never really watched it before. Why do we wear white uniforms at home abut orange uniforms away?

To me it was really weird.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure why football home teams wear team colors. Basketball traditionally wears white at home for the benefit of the home fans, who get to see a variety of different colors from the visitors instead of always seeing the same combination.
 
#12
#12
In the majority of the sports the thought was you put on your best to go to the opponent and show off your colors to the opposing fan base (for our younger viewers get blinged out to go out on the town)
 
#14
#14
I knew that traditionally, home teams usually wore white. I didn’t know it was because of black and white TV’s though. That’s interesting. I may be old, but never too old to learn!
 
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#15
#15
Thunder Good-Oil said:
What was really weird around 1969, some of the UT players wore different numbers on the road than at home.
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Back in the 70s, High School teams wore even numbers at home (white) and odd numbers away (color). This was to avoid confusion on foul calls. Number 24 would wear number 25 on the road, etc. I wonder if colleges may have done the same thing? Jimmy England wore 22 and 23 and Bill Justice wore 42 and 43.
 

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#16
#16
I kind of like how some NFL teams do it, they wear white at home for roughly half their home games and then their primary color uniform for the other half. Even the Cowboys have started wearing their navy jerseys for a home game or 2.

I always wanted to see combos we never see, like the Steelers vs. Cowboys; just because I've seen it I'd like to see the Cowboys wear navy and the Steelers wear white.
 
#17
#17
Tenacjim said:
Back in the 70s, High School teams wore even numbers at home (white) and odd numbers away (color). This was to avoid confusion on foul calls. Number 24 would wear number 25 on the road, etc. I wonder if colleges may have done the same thing? Jimmy England wore 22 and 23 and Bill Justice wore 42 and 43.
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My number as a junior at Fulton in 87-88 was 34 at home and 35 on the road
 
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#19
#19
Another aspect of how teams appear on black and white TV (original ones, using a cathode ray tube) is that teams in white were larger on the screen--literally larger. The electrons hitting the cathode ray tube light up the phosphors, so a white jersey "spreads" on the screen, while a dark jersey contracts.

When I was young, the first time I took an interest in a football game on TV was with my papaw. Just looking at the b&w screen, I could tell the team in the dark jerseys were the underdogs because they were so much smaller.

So I started rooting for the underdogs---and doggone it they won! I asked papaw who that team was, and they became "my team" 'til the end of the decade (when I got swayed by Namath's white shoes and cocky Super Bowl prediction).

That game I watched with my papaw was in 1961.

The little dark-jerseyed "underdogs" were the Green Bay Packers. They won the NFL Championship that year, and 4 more over the next 5 years.

NFL-wise... I was born on a bandwagon.
 
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#20
#20
White at home and colors on the road lets the casual TV viewer see quickly who is playing, home identified by the court, field etc. and colors to identify the visiting team, otherwise you can tell who is the host team but not who the visitors are.
 
#21
#21
TartanTurff said:
Goes back to the days of black and white television broadcasts, the home teams uniforms would be the lighter shades, visitors would be darker, color television doesn't need that distiction in contrast
Click to expand...
It looks like home whites in MLB predates television (not widely available before 1950, although it had been around before that.


It occurred to me that movie theatres used to show newsreels...those were in black and white too. But then those weren't widely available much before 1910...
 
#22
#22
kckempf said:
I'm not sure why football home teams wear team colors. Basketball traditionally wears white at home for the benefit of the home fans, who get to see a variety of different colors from the visitors instead of always seeing the same combination.
Click to expand...
Oh man. That is the best reason I've heard. Makes a ton of sense.
 
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#23
#23
woodpusher said:
It looks like home whites in MLB predates television (not widely available before 1950, although it had been around before that.


It occurred to me that movie theatres used to show newsreels...those were in black and white too. But then those weren't widely available much before 1910...
Click to expand...
I found this blurb in regards to baseball wearing white at home (and basketball likely copying the trend for similar reasons):

“Towards the turn of the 20th century, Major League Baseball clubs began touting dark blue, black, or (usually) gray jerseys on the road, and white ones at home. Back in those days, teams sometimes had difficulty finding laundry services outside of their own cities. So, for days on end, visiting players were often left with no choice but to wear the same, unwashed jerseys over and over. Darker outfits, therefore, helped mask the inevitable dirt and grass stains.

In its formative years, the younger sport of basketball likely stole and tweaked that custom. At every level from grade school to the pros, clubs usually honor the white-at-home, colors-on-the-road standard. Still, exceptions are out there.”
 
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