Illini Basketball Uniforms
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OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
Note to Brad and staff - Keep those blue arched Illini half-zips for big games.
The staff wore them in Kansas City against Arkansas and brought them out again last night. I'm superstitious - if it's a big game, that's the clothing choice.
I agree with @altgeld88 from the post-game thread - I don't care how much money it would cost. If that half-zip is available for sale, I'm buying it. Same for the white half-zips with the script Illinois. I'm guessing it would cost $200 in total for those two. Don't care - take my money and take it quickly.
The staff wore them in Kansas City against Arkansas and brought them out again last night. I'm superstitious - if it's a big game, that's the clothing choice.
I agree with @altgeld88 from the post-game thread - I don't care how much money it would cost. If that half-zip is available for sale, I'm buying it. Same for the white half-zips with the script Illinois. I'm guessing it would cost $200 in total for those two. Don't care - take my money and take it quickly.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I know there is a long way to go in the season. I know we have a lot of big home games (e.g., Saturday night primetime vs. currently #18 Michigan State, while honoring TSJ). And I know we had plenty of midseason surprises in football the last two years, including busting out the orange uniforms vs. Indiana last year and surprising us with both the Wrigley-themed and Script helmets. However...
... if there is not a 2005 throwback uniform in the 20th anniversary of that team, we need to sever our Nike contract, and some folks need to be canned!!
... if there is not a 2005 throwback uniform in the 20th anniversary of that team, we need to sever our Nike contract, and some folks need to be canned!!
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
The best photo I could find of Brad from last night on a simple Google search. These are just so good.
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
This is the white half-zip that would also instantly separate me from $85-$100 of my money if it were available for sale.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
^ The amount of money Nike and the DIA are refusing to accept by not selling more Script, Flyin' Illini, arched ILLINI and other throwback gear is truly astonishing ... incompetence bordering on negligence when it comes to a business decision!
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
But it's honestly not just for Illinois. It's for all universities. As we've discussed before, I was certain that once we saw most basketball coaches wearing casual instead of suits that we would start seeing a lot of what the coaches wore like we see in NFL team shops. I should have taken a photo during the pre-season, but you could buy just about everything the Packers' coaches and non-active players wore on the sidelined in the Green Bay Pro Shop. Give how college fans and alums often have an even greater emotional connection to college teams, you would have expected all of this stuff available for sale.
But it's just not the case. Even for the massively popular programs like UNC basketball, OSU, Duke basketball, etc., you just don't see this available. You would think that pretty much anything Ryan Day or Travis Diebler wore on the sidelines would be available. It's not. You can find the Nike bomber jackets (which I don't really like), a couple of golf shirts and 1-2 of the half zips the football coaches wear. You never see the black crewneck sweater that Diebler wears, nor do you ever see the half-zips Scheyer wears (I've checked some apparel sites to confirm this).
Maybe the coaches and athletic departments don't want to lose that exclusivity, but I sure wouldn't mind it if I knew a bunch of people were willing to part with a lot of money to wear what the coaches were wearing.
I don't understand what Nike is doing
Go to their website and search "Illinois." There's barely anything. One long sleeve T-shirt. One short sleeve womens T-shirt. One sweatpant. 3 hats. That's it. No jerseys. No hoodies. No sweatshirts of any kind. No shoes.
Tons of Oregon, Duke, UNC, Alabama stuff though.
skyIdub
"I can't tell you. Secret."
Well, last night certainly helped…/s
Bigtex
- DFW
But I would never go to Nike website for Illinois gear. Shop local (if local)
And if not local?
Let's face it, most people buy online now out of convenience. And the only place online with a large selection of licensed Illinois gear appears to be Fanatics and its associated websites. Fanatics has terrible QC and terrible customer support. I'd much rather go directly through Nike.
Even Fanatics has a fraction of the Nike Illinois apparel that's available to other schools. Forget Oregon. If you go to Fanatics and filter by Iowa and Nike, you get 192 hits. If you filter by Illinois and Nike, you get 46. The script Illini basketball jerseys we all love? I don't think Nike even makes that for retail. Why not? It really makes no sense.
And if you want to buy your kid a replica basketball jersey - forget it. Nike, not Nike, doesn't matter. Can't find anything that looks like what the team actually wears.
It is what it is. Just odd to me that in the year 2025, a fan of a Nike school that's an Elite Eight basketball program and top 25 football program can't find basic fan apparel like replica jerseys, warmups, and, like @OrangeBlue98 said, the type of gear you see the staff wearing.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I'm sure there is another school that KIND OF has our same dynamic, but what seems pretty unique about Illinois is that we effectively have two brands - the MT Era 1LL1NO1S brand on our collective throwbacks (Script, Flyin' Illini, arched ILLINI, etc.). And there is a TOTAL disconnect between the consumer base and Nike about where the money to be made is. Our fans seem to DECIDEDLY prefer our throwback stuff to the modern stuff, and yet the following situation seems to exist:
- Apparel available to fans? 75% 1LL1NO1S and 25% throwback.
- Cool coach apparel that is not available for purchase?? 75% throwback and 25% 1LL1NO1S.
I could live with coaches having access to cooler stuff than we do ... but give me a crappier version of SOME arched ILLINI apparel, lol!
I recommend Gameday Spirit or Rally House.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
It will be interesting if we DO get a surprise orange Script uniform if we go with (A) the original design (navy font/white outline) or (B) the design we chose for the helmet worn in the Citrus Bowl (white font/navy outline). Visual of both below:
Original Design
Design for Script Helmet
While it might be easiest to assume we would stick with the original and just replicate that jersey, I could see them flipping it to match the Script helmets. As we have touched on in previous versions of this thread, we did make small alterations to the orange Flyin' Illini uniform when we brought it back, and I could see us doing it with this, too.
Personally, since we already have the white font/navy outline pattern for the orange Flyin' Illini uniforms, I would like to see the opposite on our Script ones and simply replicate the original.
Original Design
Design for Script Helmet
While it might be easiest to assume we would stick with the original and just replicate that jersey, I could see them flipping it to match the Script helmets. As we have touched on in previous versions of this thread, we did make small alterations to the orange Flyin' Illini uniform when we brought it back, and I could see us doing it with this, too.
Personally, since we already have the white font/navy outline pattern for the orange Flyin' Illini uniforms, I would like to see the opposite on our Script ones and simply replicate the original.
I've checked both!
Ah didn't realize you are looking specifically for a Nike script jersey. I just meant in general, those are probably the best online retailers for Illinois gear.
But this might explain why we don't simply wear throwbacks for every game..
It seems like maybe Nike doesn't have a licensing agreement that covers the throwback designs in retail? It looks like all the throwbacks are sold by a brand called Original Retro. So perhaps, OR has an exclusive licensing agreement for the throwbacks, meaning Nike can't sell them? If that's the case, then it would make sense for Nike to have some kind of clause in their contract with us which mandates that we wear the standard jerseys for x% of games. They want us to wear (advertise) a product of theirs.
Not a bad theory.
I'm ok with the unbranded jersey. I have a Kofi one. I just think it's weird that Nike seems to put out less gear for our program than for basically any other major program they sponsor. I can't imagine the market isn't there. Perhaps our licensing is a little more complicated than other schools.
Bigtex
- DFW
That is what I mean shop local (don’t have to be local)
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
This would also help explain why we don't see a lot of script Illinois gear in particular and why Nike's licensed gear is the slanted font. Bummer if that's the case, and perhaps Nike doesn't think they'd be able to sell enough to justify buying the licensing for the scripts from Original Retro.
If that is truly the case, Original Retro needs to up their game, as well as their bottom line, and get some gear available to sell to us!!!
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Here you go man, both men’s and youth sizes available in both Fighting Illini throwbacks and script with part of the proceeds going directly to the players:
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