You may have noticed a controversy swirling in the Philly sports airwaves this week. No, not the Wentz vs Foles debate for the billionth time. It’s the new Sixers uniform saga. Fans have been begging the team to bring back the Iverson Era black uniforms for years. The team, took that information, used it to tease the franchise with a new uniform debut, and then just released a hybrid version of the Clippers and Nuggets uniforms. It was eerily similar to how users beg Twitter for an edit button and then Twitter debuts a bunch of meaningless functions no one asked for instead.
https://twitter.com/sixers/status/1326574889206222849?s=21
Here’s a sane, reasonable take on the jerseys. They’re perfectly fine. Boathouse Row is underrated. They would be cool if the PR strategy wasn’t to Dick tease the fan base with a jersey they had been clamoring for. It’s WILD how front office members of this team, even the marketing department, can’t do anything right.
But here’s where it gets so much worse. Chris Heck, is the President of the Sixers and oversees the creative concepts like jerseys. Here’s what he had to say on the new Sixers City jersey:
https://twitter.com/panasonicdx4500/status/1326905890386178058?s=21
All I could think of reading this quote was this tweet:
https://twitter.com/abcdrih/status/1326067223861981186?s=21
There’s a sliver of truth to what he’s saying. We are more than just barbarians who threw snowballs at Santa. There’s good food here. There’s good people here. I got drunk in Rittenhouse Park once, it’s a nice enough place. The aesthetic of Philly is nicer than an outsider would think.
But that’s exactly what “Chris Heck” is. An outsider trying to come in and change the culture that’s been the DNA of this city since its founding. Being “New Philadelphia” is just a fancy way of throwing out the “blue collar” culture and replacing it with some soulless corporate sellout version of it.
So, now we know who the new uniforms appeal to: corporate sellouts who are tired of expensive NYC and moved to Philly, trying to create a New Philadelphia of 1%’ers.