May
17
Team Colors By Sport
With baseball season going on, as little as I pay attention, I’ve noticed most times I see a game I see a lot of red and blue. Baseball is a very old and traditional game, so the standard patriotic color schemes make sense. I wanted to take a look and see just how much of the major leagues are red and blue and how that compares to other sports. I was also interested to see what colors are more predominant in what sports.
So here’s what I did:
I gathered the two “official” predominant colors for each MLB, NBA, and NFL team (sorry, hockey; these charts take too long to plan). Then I counted how many times each color appeared, calling each color one of the following:
I'm not sure which 2 colors I would have used from this old logo…
- Red
- Navy blue
- Royal blue
- Light blue
- Teal
- Green
- Black
- White
- Silver
- Orange
- Yellow
- Gold
- Purple
- Maroon (NFL only)
- Brown (NFL only)
Then I plotted each team between its two colors for each sport, providing a way to see graphically which colors were most frequent (size of the circle) and which color combinations were most common (number of teams between the two colors).The charts are below for each sport (click each to view full size), and here are some interesting takeaways:
- 33% of MLB teams have a red and blue (navy or royal) color scheme, compared to 20% in the NBA and 12.5% in the NFL
- Red is the most common color in MLB (14 teams) and the NBA (13), while navy blue is the most common in the NFL (10).
- The NFL has more color variety. 78% of NFL teams have a combination that no other team in the league has (compared to 43% of NBA teams and 33% of MLB teams). In fact, in the NFL, only one color combination is used more than twice – red and navy blue is used three times.
- The most unique colors across all three sports are brown and maroon, each appearing only once (both in the NFL).
- 17 teams have a 2-color scheme that no other team across all three sports has.
Anything else that jumps out at you?
Also, check out this timeline of team color changes.
Great work! It would also be interesting to see how teams migrated from one color palette to another, and when. There’s probably some correlation between trends in art and team colors.I’m all for the return of 1960′s NBA logos.
Yeah, like how every 90s expansion team involved teal and/or purple, and now almost all have gone away from those. I’ll add it to the queue!
EDIT: You can now see team color changes here!
Really nice work on the graphics – ROY G. BIV would be proud. Cool site; looking forward to seeing the next post!
I almost missed the nice touch on the shape of each infographic! Sweetness.
Any particular reason why you decided to stick the Detroit Lions between black & light blue instead of silver & light blue? I think the Tampa Bay Bucs “pewter” color is unique enough to get it’s own slot as well, rather than getting lumped in with silver.
…other than that, really cool work…
Oh, good catch, Jeff. That was just a mistake. I had the line there for the Lions to go on and didn’t put them there. Fixed now.
I thought about giving Tampa Bay their own pewter, but decided to lump it in with silver, even though it’s darker. Definitely could have gone either way, though.
Thanks for checking it out!
Great work, but as a Reds fan, I noticed you have them on the Red-White line instead of the Red-Black line. As much as I detest the use of black, we do have it as a trim color.
Thanks, Michael. A lot of teams had a third color, but in most cases it was a “trim” color like you mentioned and I was able to find what are considered the two primary. For the Reds it appears red and white are the two predominant colors.
The A’s colors are very unique in baseball.
very cool and very thorough. it’s weird, tho… i was just thinking the other day when the indians were playing the reds “i wonder how many baseball teams wear red?” thanks for answering my question and then some!
i think it is unique that the graphs are in shapes of their sport.
baseball – diamond
basketball – three point line/key
football – a football shape
Great article. I’ve been annoyed for quite some time at the similar colors in baseball. There is only ONE team that doesn’t wear a red, blue, or black hat. There is way too much red and blue. Couldn’t teams like the Rays and Marlins at least wear their light blue / teal as a hat color?
Great Stuff. Had a question about the Eagles though, since they seem to be on the black and blue (aquamarine) line, when their colors are white, black and green. The midnight green is not as distinct as the former Kelly Green, but it is still green.
Hey Ron,
There’s definitely some subjective nature to this since I had to put each color into a category, but I’ve got them between black and teal, which I think their latest green is closer to than a true “green.” It’s not that similar to the Dolphins’ teal, but very similar to the Jaguars’.
Interesting that you did not include the 30 NHL teams, leaves your “analysis” incomplete.
Yeah… frankly, each one of these took a lot longer than I anticipated and I don’t follow hockey at all. So hockey won’t get as much love on my site, but I will try to include it when I can. I’ll have to come back and do this for the NHL since people seem to have enjoyed it.
Oh my god. Awesome visuals!!!
Great work on the charts! One possible gripe though: Seems to me that the Bills and Giants should switch spots in the NFL one, based on recent years.
[...] a look at some of these wonderful graphs created by The Sports Design Blog just reinforced my desire to get this out in the [...]
Just wondering… why did you keep maroon as a separate choice for the NFL chart (Redskins) but consider it to be “red” on the NBA chart (Cavs). IMO, the Cavs’ “Wine & Gold” is more like a maroon than plain ol’ red. Is it just because then the Cavs wouldn’t have been on the chart at all?
I’m trying to wrap my head around the concept of doing these charts, but taking into account third (and even fourth) colors. I’d think the whole themed design (diamond, half-court, football) idea would have to be abandoned, as the charts would be far more complex and difficult to arrange.
Also, the Utah Jazz should definitely be between purple and yellow, and not navy and yellow.
Never mind…apparently the Jazz now wear navy blue instead of purple. That sucks.
THIS IS AWESOME! Great job!
These graphics are cool. I do however wish that no teams in the same would have the same color scheme. Team colors add to the team pride in some way.
So if any NBA team is thinking of changing their colors to something unique, heres a few unused
Black and yellow
black and Gold
Orange and black (hint– BOBCATS)
Brown and ? (hint — MEMPHIS)
ps: Toronto should make the camouflage scheme their regular uniform
Fantastic job with the color chart – I have none of your talent, but I enjoy unique, clean looking uniforms.
Please update!!
http://colorwerx.blogspot.com/2012/04/2012-nfl-team-colors-changes.html
So very nicely executed. I would love to see this done globally for world football!
We’re you going purely from the team’s logos or uniforms? I ask because teams like the Cubs, who have red in their logo, never wear red unis. Their branding is blue > white > gray as far the garments go. Either way, love the study!
Your good! Very detailed and precise! Yellow and Green rules here in Oregon.
Just saw this. Wanted to say thanks. I’m a logo and uniform nut. Love this.
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This is great. Have you done anything like this with college teams as well?
Thanks, Amanda! The closest thing for college I’ve done is team color by geography:
http://www.thesportsdesignblog.com/2011/05/27/college-team-colors-by-geography/
Very cool. But the Detroit Tigers would be much better as Navy & Orange. That’s how we Tiger fans associate their colors.
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