Purple & Teal

This post was originally written in December 2005, when I first had the idea for this blog (or at least one like it).  While some of the references are a bit dated, I felt like this masterpiece was too significant to keep only on my hard drive, hidden from public view.  We must remember the Purple and Teal era of the 1990s, lest we find the 2010s "flooded with magenta and chartreuse."

In addition to NFL games in San Antonio and Baton Rouge, NBA games in Oklahoma City, and college football’s New Orleans Bowl’s relocation to Lafayette, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has presented the sports world with another intriguing scenario – the potential return of professional football to Los Angeles.  While many sports fans and journalists seemed caught off guard by the proposal, there is no rational reason to be surprised; after all, we are currently living in a decade of “second chances” when it comes to professional sports league expansion.  The four major American sports leagues have combined to add four new franchises since 2000, with three of them presenting their respective cities with another shot at successful franchises.  The NHL gave Minneapolis a second chance at professional hockey in 2000, creating the Minnesota Wild to replace the former North Stars, who have since relocated to Dallas to become the Stars.  In 2002, the Houston Texans took the place of the Oilers, who moved to Nashville to eventually become the Titans, and the NBA established the Charlotte Bobcats in 2004 to take the place of the former Charlotte Hornets, who moved to New Orleans just years earlier.  Only Columbus, who never had a professional sports franchise until the Blue Jackets in 2000, bucked the trend.  Thus the return of professional football to L.A. later this decade would certainly make sense.

While the new franchises of the 2000s are linked by their common roles as second chances for their respective cities, the expansion clubs of the 1990s are connected by an even more obscure, and certainly less explainable, phenomenon.  While every other wave of professional sports expansion has been, and will most likely continue to be, motivated by some combination of economic opportunity and political pressure, expansion in the 1990s was seemingly executed for one purpose, and one purpose only – to flood professional arenas and stadiums with purple and teal uniforms and logos.

The real "surprise" was the teal on the uniforms of both 1995 NFL expansion teams. 

How else can we rationally explain the fact that of the 15 franchises that entered the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB between 1991 and 1998, an astounding TEN originally had either purple or teal as an official team color (San Jose Sharks, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Colorado Rockies, Florida Marlins, Toronto Raptors, Vancouver Grizzlies, Jacksonville Jaguars, Baltimore Ravens, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Tampa Bay Devil Rays).  Additionally, the Carolina Panthers adorned their uniforms with a unique “panther blue,” which, if classified as a member of the teal family, would up the count to eleven.  Perhaps more amazingly, the Mighty Ducks, Diamondbacks and Devil Rays incorporated both purple and teal into their uniforms when they were introduced to the world or professional sports.  Only the Tampa Bay Lightning, Ottawa Senators, Florida Panthers, and Nashville Predators were spared from the wrath of the purple and teal between 1991 and 1998. 

To what can we attribute this frighteningly bizarre phenomenon?  While both teal (Miami Dolphins) and purple (Phoenix Suns, Minnesota Vikings) had made their way into professional sports well before 1991, never before had the two colors received such attention and recognition.  More amazingly, no previous wave of expansion had ever seen two colors dominate the uniform spectrum in this way – especially not colors as obscure as purple and teal.  Somehow, in a span of eight years, purple and teal began to dominate professional sports wardrobes in a way that only blue and red could hope to compete with.  When sports historians look back and attempt to study the 1990s, they will be forced to conclude that American fans of basketball, baseball, hockey and football were, for one crazy decade, obsessed with a color combination that was previous relegated to the discount rack in the plus-sized women’s clothing department at Sears.  We can never allow ourselves, as sports fans and protectors of the colors that make our teams great, to forget the purple and teal era, lest we forget the horrible injustices forced upon uniforms across the nation.  Unless we are careful, the 2010s could be flooded with magenta and chartreuse.