Cuban: Mavs to Let Fans Design New Unis

Dallas Mavericks multi-billionaire owner Mark Cuban today announced that his NBA basketball team would be getting new uniforms for the 2015-16 season… well, only if they get a decent pro-bono design of course.

Cuban posted the news on his “Blog Maverick” website, offering up the chance that many fans dream of — having their uniform design concept used by a professional team.

Mavericks-2011-Champions — The new uniform would replace those worn during the Mavs 2011 NBA Championship season

While some fans of sports and design fulfill this dream by spending several years in college, starting up a sports branding firm, roughing it out and spending away a tonne of money for years to earn this opportunity, Cuban’s offer gives Diamond Joe Photoshop a free pass through the express lane to skip all of that. It’s simple really, all you have to do is be willing to receive nothing in exchange for the work you do while millionaires make millions off of it.

Sorry, did I say “receive nothing”?

I apologize, that was a mistake… Cuban boasts you’ll get “eternal bragging rights” and heck, he “may even throw in some tickets” if he “really likes both your design and you”.

It’s the American Idol generation folks!

Mark-Cuban — Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is asking for free fan designs for the new team uniforms

Your designs are property of the Dallas Mavericks the second you submit your concept. Concepts are submitted via a comment on his blog post. No, seriously.

Submissions thus far have ranged from sketches on a notepad to Miami Heat jerseys to hardcore gay pornography. I guess you get what you pay for.

Mavs-New-Uniform-Concept — As of the writing of this article, this was the only non-gay pornography design submitted

While it’s true that in the past I’ve supported a fan design contest I can’t say I’m a fan of this one. Maybe because it’s for a permanent team uniform set instead of just a fun one-off? Maybe because it’s the famously rich Mark Cuban trying to get his fans to throw in some free labour and then purchase the results? Probably all of the above.

Cuban says he’ll only look at designs until the end of May, if you’re into it this sorta thing then I guess you better get designing now.