National Basketball Association - Houston Rockets

Houston Rockets' Uniforms Leak Out to Web

Red's in fashion again

Web sales put Rockets' sleek new look before public

By JONATHAN FEIGEN
© 2003 Houston Chronicle

Very simple. Very different. And very, very red.

The design of the Rockets' new uniforms slipped out on the Internet last week before the team could orchestrate its debut. But with two arcs circling the sleeves to match the new "R" logo, the Rockets did not need a catwalk for the red-and-silver look to prove a radical departure from eight seasons of stripes and a much-criticized cartoon rocket.

"I'm very happy with them. I think they're great," Rockets vice president for marketing Tim McDougall said. "We had a couple of goals going in. One was color. Color is the first thing people see and identify when they look at uniforms. We took a lot of care to see what fans identify with. Red was the color people identify when they think of the Rockets. We started with that. The second goal was to have a clean, timeless and unique look to the Rockets' design. I think we've got that."

Other features include a fabric specifically designed for the Rockets' uniforms; a harsh, slashing type font; and the use of the team name, rather than "Houston," on the front of the road uniforms.

The primary goal, McDougall said, was to settle on a design that would "appeal over a long period of time."

"There are different things you can do, some to make people immediately like uniforms but that wear out over time," he said. "We wanted something, a design, to wear for a long time. The most important thing was, `What works best over the long haul?' "

If the Rockets got what they wanted in the new look, they lost the chance of debuting the uniforms when an online sporting goods company posted photographs of the jerseys and began taking orders.

There had been leaks of the designs throughout the summer. However, most were either prototypes for commercial photo shoots -- with thin rather than the widening stripes around the arms -- or images for computer games. Several previous glimpses of the uniforms appeared in violation of signed non-disclosure agreements and were quickly removed from Web sites.

Small sections of the uniforms seen on billboards around Houston, on the Rockets' Web site and on posters distributed by the Chronicle were artistic renditions never intended for wear by the players.

The Rockets are waiting for Reebok to supply a set of uniforms in order to unveil them but tentatively have planned an event for next week to show off team merchandise.

"I guess I could buy a couple and launch it that way," McDougall said. "It's frustrating to some extent. We'd love to have gotten it earlier in the summer. But ... the most important thing is to get it right for the long haul. I'll make that trade-off any day. We'll launch sometime when we get the uniforms in house a little over a week from now."

Last week's online unveiling of the uniforms did not include the shorts.

"The shorts have the same color patterns," McDougall said. "The arcing pattern is repeated on the side of the shorts, but smaller of course, and the logo is on the side of a leg, edged to the front a little bit."

The decision to use the word "Rockets" rather than "Houston" on the road jersey -- a feature hotly debated before it was adopted when the Rockets last revised their uniforms in 1995 -- will help with branding the team.

"We've looked at it," McDougall said. "It's been that way for a while. We will have `Houston' on the warmups as the team comes out. A lot of teams use the city name on the road but not all teams. Some good examples to follow -- the Bulls, Celtics and Lakers, for example -- are three fairly storied franchises and have remained top sellers as players come and go.

"We're very proud of Houston, but at the same time we decided, `Let's keep the team name up front.' We think it's the way to brand the team correctly."

McDougall said much of the delay in designing and producing the uniforms was the byproduct of the fabric he said was specifically designed for the Rockets.

"The problem with red is the fabric always bleeds," McDougall said. "We had issues with that. If we were going with red, we could backtrack to a fabric that was not the ultimate in performance. We took a lot of time to come up with a fabric with the best performance and best appearance with a lot of shine, also non-bleed. From a playability standpoint and appearance standpoint, we created, working with Reebok, a fabric just for this uniform.

"We spent a lot of time on (the font). We really settled on the `R' icon first and wanted a letter font with that. We didn't want something too out there (that was) too tricky. That could wear out on you. We wanted something stylized, too."

The style was largely created by Eiko Ishioka, an Oscar winner for costume design on Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1992. It was then honed by Rockets, Reebok and NBA officials.

"What struck her most about basketball is it's a very vertical sport," McDougall said. "She wanted to capture that with something for athletes that are sleek and strong and (that reflected) the sport's upward motion and used the arcs. With the name of the team, Rockets, it's a ... really good fit."

Now all the Rockets have to do is get a few uniforms of their very own.

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