Over the past several months, players, fans, and media have criticized the new uniforms throughout Major League Baseball this season do to quality concerns and see-through pants, and it sounds like MLB is placing the blame solely on Nike.
According to a report from MLB insider Jeff Passan of ESPN, Major League Baseball sent a memo to the MLB Players Association on Sunday indicating that the league plans to address the complaints with the uniform. The memo also threw Nike under the bus, placing blame and calling out the sports apparel giant.
“This has been entirely a Nike issue,” the memo to players read according to ESPN. “At its core, what has happened here is that Nike was innovating something that didn’t need to be innovated.”
The memo also explicitly claimed that Fanatics, the manufacturer of the uniforms which has taken much blame from the fans and media, was not responsible, saying that Fanatics “recognizes the vital importance of soliciting Player feedback, obtaining Player buy-in and not being afraid to have difficult conversations about jerseys or trading cards. Our hope is that, moving forward, Nike will take a similar approach.”
The memo says that Major League Baseball even cautioned Nike against making the changes to the uniforms, but Nike did it anyway.
“We cautioned Nike against various changes when they previewed them in 2022, particularly regarding pants,” the union memo read. “MLB had been, and has been, aware of our concerns as well. Unfortunately, until recently Nike’s position has essentially boiled down to — ‘nothing to see here, Players will need to adjust.'”
But the good news is, it sounds like it’s all going to be fixed.
[ESPN]
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