New York Red Bulls and New England Revolution kick off 2018 by releasing new kits

Welcome to 2018! The dawning of a New Year is a time for resolutions and other cliches that involve positive change, but it also means that it’s time for Major League Soccer teams to start unveiling their new looks for the upcoming season as well! Yes, it’s been barely a month since Toronto FC lifted MLS Cup, but the 2018 MLS SuperDraft is two weeks from Friday, preseason starts in February, and the regular season is back on in March. So the season is right around the corner and that means that it’s prime time for teams to start unveiling their new looks for 2018.

MLS teams are allowed to change one kit a season, and they normally alternate between the primary and clash kit. Before we get into the official unveilings, we have a couple of minor confirmations to report:

– Atlanta United will keep their primary kit for 2018, which means that we’ll be seeing them in a new clash kit for this season.
– Portland Timbers will be unveiling a white shirt for 2018. How do we know this? The club themselves leaked a teaser image on social media.

Now it’s time to get into the new stuff, as both the New England Revolution and the New York Red Bulls wasted no time in 2018 by bringing out their new looks. The Revs will have a new primary look and they really wasted no time as they released this kit at exactly 12:00 AM EST as the calendar turned to 2018.

This is a bit of a downgrade from what they’ve worn at home for the previous two seasons. The off-center vertical stripes are a good idea, but the color selection is a bit poor. This would have looked better with white stripes, red stripes, or even a combination of both. Instead, the shades of blue look really out of place and as a result, the entire shirt suffers and this means that we’ve got a downgrade on our hands.

Meanwhile, shortly after the Revs unveiled their new look, the New York Red Bulls burst onto the scene with a brilliant red shirt. This will be their clash kit for 2017 and honestly, it makes all the sense in the world that a team called the Red Bulls would finally decide to wear something red for a change.

Normally we see New York wear navy with yellow trim for their clash kit, but it’s clear that the Red Bull sports empire decided that it was time to let their teams switch things up a bit and this is a huge departure from what we’re used to seeing from NYRB when it comes to their clash kit.

In my opinion, the start of kit release season for MLS is off to a 50/50 start. The Red Bulls absolutely nailed it with their unveiling, while the Revs could have done a lot better. Which kits are you looking forward to as we get closer and closer to the start of the 2018 MLS season?