The San Diego Padres are having a season to forget in 2018, so now seems like as good a time as any to explore the possibility of some rebranding. The team is doing just that, and the end result could be some very different uniforms.
In the latest episode of Jesse Agler’s “Beyond the Booth” podcast, Padres executive chairman Ron Fowler indicated that he expects the team’s old colors — predominantly brown — to become their new colors beginning in 2020. Fowler said the Padres have conducted “exhaustive” focus-group studies over the past six months or so and determined that brown seems like the way to go.
“We are going to further test, probably within the next 60-90 days,” he said, per AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. “I would expect that brown will prevail in a side-by-side versus four uniforms. We will probably move in that direction hopefully for the 2020 season.
“What we have found, and we’ll get into that in greater detail, is the largest minority likes a deep brown uniform. They think it says we’re San Diego. It differentiates us. But it’s a minority. You add it up, that would be the largest minority.”
The Padres were founded in 1969, and their logo and colors were predominantly brown until about 1991, when the current blue and white branding took over. They kept the white and blue color scheme for their move to Petco Park in 2004.
We have already heard of at least one other pro sports team that is planning to make some significant branding changes, and it’s probably no surprise the Padres are doing the same when they’re in last place and averaging around 66 percent for attendance on the season.
