Most sport teams in America are using some amount of red and blue for their team colors. Trivia question right off the top- in your head, no cheating, can you name the 9 MLB teams that (mostly) don’t feature red or blue? I’ll have the answer for you below. Maybe Raleigh’s MLB team joins the list? Maybe not. Let’s set up some criteria for how we choose colors.
Criteria #1- Psychological Advantage?
Many AI generated-slop articles report that certain colors give teams psychological advantages- intimidation or calming effects. The proof is a reference to some “meta study” that doesn’t actually exist. I’ve looked. The scholarship that does exist mostly finds no evidence for any colors causing meaningful psychological effects. The typical color assumed to intimidate is red, but here’s a good recent study that shows no statistically significant effects from the color red. There’s a little bit of scholarship about referee bias with colors … and I suppose you could get into umpires being affected, but there is no evidence of that happening regularly or in a significant way. What a criteria, eh? I feel that straw man has been adequately burned.
Criteria Version #2- Least Used by Existing MLB and NC teams
The thinking here is to differentiate- to stand out from the color schemes of most teams. Let’s start with the MLB. I mentioned above how most have red or blue… or both. Here’s my tally for teams’ dominant colors. By this I mean the color that leads the team identity. I might quibble with a couple of these myself- the Tigers feel more like black than blue… but overall you’ll get the idea.
Red: Red Sox, Reds, Cardinals, Angels, Phillies, Twins, Nationals, Diamondbacks
Blue: Dodgers, Blue Jays, Cubs, Royals, Rangers, Mets, Braves, Rays, Guardians, Yankees, Tigers, Astros, Brewers
Black: White Sox, Pirates
Orange: Orioles, Giants
Green: Athletics, Mariners
Purple: Rockies
Brown: Padres
Teal: Marlins
I’m not sure what this list says other than reinforcing how many teams are red and blue. And most of those teams are doing both. Let’s add in the major NC teams.
Red: NC State, Carolina Hurricanes
Blue: Panthers, Charlotte Knights, UNC, Duke, Durham Bulls
Black/Gold: App State (is this a “major” team? Catching strays!)
Purple/Gold: ECU
Teal/Purple: Hornets
I guess what jumps out at me is how rare green is overall. I’m not a fan of green and yellow together. So maybe green with something else? As long as I’m expressing my color tastes, my college alma mater has a pretty bad combo: purple and gold. Ick. As a tall white dude, I don’t think I look good in red, so I suppose I’m a smidge biased against that choice. Generally in baseball you get a decent amount of gray with road jerseys. I like gray as a featured color, but every team already gets that with travel ‘fits.
Criteria Version #3- Colors that Match the Other City Teams
Let’s go the opposite direction from #2. Don’t differentiate. Fit in! Many teams choose to join the dominant color identity of their city. An interesting example is the Charlotte Knights. You can see above they are in the ‘blue’ category, but that wasn’t always true. They are affiliated with the White Sox and so began with black and white dominant colors. Somewhat recently, though, they switched from black to blue to better match the colors of the Panthers and Hornets. What does this mean for a Raleigh team? Well, it’s pretty clear. NC State: red. Hurricanes: red. I should probably prepare myself for some red in the palette. And I think I could get behind a palette combination of red, gray, and white. For some years I flirted with the prospect of opening a cidery and have made many unnecessary graphics and logos with that same palette.
Criteria Version #4- Colors that Fit Raleigh
My final criteria has to do with the city of Raleigh. The city flag has bold red sides with a white center. In that center is some green. Green and red are a rather rare combination in sports. You can probably think of a few national soccer teams with those colors, but not many professional American sport teams. I suppose that’s an option. I think it’s rare because they are not ideal aesthetic partners, but it is certainly possible to feature one or the other for different uniforms. Perhaps you have a green and white palette for home games and a red and gray palette for away games. That could work.
Somewhat boring final caveat: obviously team color has to fit with team name. We can’t have the Raleigh Raspberries without the color red, but even then the rest of the palette is open to secondary colors. I think I might allow color schemes to influence my preference of team names!
Leave a Reply