Wearing home jerseys on the road

[Andrew]

Here's a question I was reminded of watching the Warriors/Spurs game today. When a team wears their home jerseys in a road game, are they more likely to win? The Spurs were wearing their black alternates despite being at home, which meant the Warriors were wearing their white home jerseys. That's not too uncommon when a team breaks out an alternate, and it's admittedly not the best example as the Warriors have been dominant all season long, winning at home and on the road, but I have wondered whether wearing home jerseys on the road provides some kind of psychological advantage in general.

To that end, I'm curious to know what the overall record is in games where road teams have worn their home jersey, and see whether the visiting team wins more often in that scenario. I'm guessing no one's been keeping track of that, but I think it'd be interesting to note all the same.

There could be some interesting ramifications in other uniform-related scenarios, too. For example, are there more turnovers in games where teams with very similar jerseys/colour schemes are squaring off? What about in games where teams are wearing special alternates that differ from the team's usual colours (such as St. Patrick's Day jerseys)? If so, would that lend credibility to the approach of designing unique jerseys that stand out from the opposition, perhaps cutting down on confusion and allowing teams to take better care of the ball?

[ThePointForward]

I'd say there's no psychological advantage - it's just my unfounded opinion though.

It's certainly good for the team if fans are more into the game because they see jerseys they don't usually see (like Lakers' iconic gold/purple jerseys, which home fans almost never see).

As far as turnovers go, if the teams have similar colors, then I'd say yes.

For the alternate jerseys I don't think so, many of them are similar to the training jerseys.

[mp3]

Not sure if wearing your home jersey on the road gives you an edge but I am in favour of the jersey mixes ups and different jerseys that each team has this year at there disposal unlike the 90's where if you were lucky you had teams with one alternative jersey for the road.

I found it interesting when the knicks and Bulls played there Home & Home back to back games where both teams played in the road jerseys for both games.

[Andrew]

It's definitely not a bad thing, though I'd personally prefer none of those alternates to have sleeves.

[mp3]

Oh I think most of the fans/players are in agreement there mate.

[ThePointForward]

They're nice for fans though - jerseys are not always usable/appropriate to wear everywhere. I mean when they aren't just hideous.

[benji]

It should be a crime. The Cavs are the worst offenders probably having like six different jerseys that they wear both home and away.

Also, I've wondered how teams decide on this. Like do the Cavs tell the team months ahead of time they'll be wearing their blues or yellows on said night. Or are they all like, oh, you brought your roads, we'll be wearing ours too. Or do they have increasing tense negotiations over the weeks trying to make the other team break.

Also, do they try to screw with the other team. Like tell the Lakers to wear their home yellows, then suddenly wear their yellow alternates. So everybody is in a yellow jersey.

I'm making this way more interesting than it probably is.

[koberulz]

Relevant:

phpBB [video]

[mp3]

That's crazy that the refs et that game go ahead like that lol

When I was running my local area team we agreed with the away team on jersey colour then they turn up with the same colour jersey so the refs told us being the home team wr had to switch, luckily I only lived 20 minute round trip away so it was easily fixed

[ThePointForward]

Holy crap, I thought this happened only in MyTEAM/Pro-AM online. Though it looks like a good game actually.


But yeah, we once had to wear white jerseys as the away team (dark weren't made yet) and the home team had only white jerseys as well.
We had to bring reflex green jerseys over the regular ones. The refs were fine with it as they could make out the numbers through them plus we have numbers on the shorts too.

[buzzy]

Like do the Cavs tell the team months ahead of time they'll be wearing their blues or yellows on said night.

They definitely do.

http://www.nba.com/cavaliers/2015-16-jersey-schedule

Right now with only one game left it doesn't look very impressive, but I remember looking at that site at the start of the season and they definitely had their rotation mapped out until the final game, including all 17 of their alternates.

Way back snapshot from December if you care enough:
http://web.archive.org/web/201512070524 ... y-schedule

[Andrew]

Relevant:

phpBB [video]

That's crazy.

Also...D-MAC!

[[Q]]

I tihnk this happens way too often, especially when teams try to wear all those extra stupid jerseys from Adidas at home.. I mean, I guess it really doesn't matter, but I get bothered when I watch a game and away teams wear white.

[koberulz]

I don't even understand the home team wearing white. Surely the home team should get to wear their colours? It looks especially bad during the playoffs when everyone does the free t-shirt gimmick and half the time the crowd is in the other team's colour.

That's crazy that the refs et that game go ahead like that lol

Not much they could do, I imagine. It was part of an initiative by the league to play games in smaller regional venues that didn't normally see national-league games. For some reason, the team from New South Wales was nominally the home team, playing against a team from Victoria in Victoria. So the Titans took their away jerseys because it was nominally an away game, the Hawks took their away jerseys because they were playing Victoria in Victoria, and the nearest set of home jerseys was 105km (65 miles) away.

Also...D-MAC!

My favourite thing to do is watch him play with new teammates. The whole game you just see passes whizzing right by guys who didn't even realise they were open.

[Andrew]

Darker uniforms were easier to keep clean on the road, which is obviously no longer an issue with bigger budgets and staffs, not to mention ample spare jerseys on hand for every player. It's one of those traditions/practices that's continued because that's the way it's always been, even though the original reason for it is no longer a factor.

[benji]

American football at the college and NFL level is notably the inverse, the home team usually wears what we'd consider "away" jerseys in the NBA/NHL/MLB. And most teams play in white for the road.

Though a few teams have historically always bucked the trend.

[[Q]]

Yeah Jerry Jones loves the white jerseys so they wear that every week. Also, I think the Redskins do something weird like that too.