The eight charter members of the new Alliance of American Football unveiled their inaugural season uniforms this afternoon.
With jerseys by Starter and helmets by Riddell, the AAF’s slate of uniforms for 2019 range between some teams getting creative, colourful and going way outside football’s usual design norms to a team wearing a black and grey uniform with no logo on the side of a blank black helmet. There’s something for everyone.
So far just one set of uniforms has been released for each of the clubs. Let’s take a look:
ARIZONA HOTSHOTS
The Arizona Hotshots based their identity on the uniforms worn by U.S. Forest Service firefighters that help battle blazes in throughout Arizona. Their jersey is gold with an orange collar and green sleeves, an orange/gold/green stripe up each side of the jersey and extending somewhat onto the pants. The helmet is gold with a green face mask, the Hotshots primary logo featuring two crossed fire axes on a shield similar to a firefighter badge is one side of the helmet, the player’s number on the other, a stripe featuring an “AZ” design at the front goes up the middle.
ATLANTA LEGENDS
The Atlanta Legends wear a crown on their helmet because “Legends wear crowns” as the team Tweeted today. Purple and gold, the colours of royalty, like the Hotshots their helmet features a logo on just one side of the helmet with the player number on the other. The jersey is purple with gold sleeves and numbers, “ATL” up either side of the jersey in gold. Pants are gold with a solid purple stripe up either side.
BIRMINGHAM IRON
Here’s something we didn’t expect, a blank black helmet. The Birmingham Iron are going black (or graphite?) from head to toe, the blank helmet up top, the jersey with some silver stripes up either side (and extending onto the pants), the player number on the front in silver.
MEMPHIS EXPRESS
The Memphis Express look like they’d fit in with Nike’s vision for the NFL, the helmet a gradient from blue to red with the jet from their primary logo on the side wrapping around the back and continuing on the other side Seattle Seahawks style. The jersey is blue with red sleeves and collar, plain white numbers, and a red stripe with several thin blue horizontal stripes within it; pants are red.
ORLANDO APOLLOS
The only white uniform we saw today, the Orlando Apollos have a white jersey with blue shoulders, an orange collar, and orange/white/blue stripes up each side of the jersey; like the others, this striping pattern continues onto the matching white pants. The helmet is blue with an orange facemask and the primary logo on either side. The center of the back of the helmet (not pictured here) includes a large decal showing the player’s number in white with an orange drop shadow.
SALT LAKE STALLIONS
We saw two different helmets for the Salt Lake Stallions today, could be a home/road option, could be an error, the photo of the full uniform showed a silver shell, the helmet graphic released by the league is white, both images showed a light blue face mask and logo – the mane of the horse from their primary logo. Jersey is silver with a light blue collar and sleeves, darker royal blue for the player numbers, pants are light blue with royal blue striping (which continues up the jersey).
SAN ANTONIO COMMANDERS
Two shades of red, the San Antonio Commanders have a helmet in both dark red and regular(?) red, this two-tone design culminates with a design of the Alamo on the back of the helmet. The jersey is red with dark red shoulders, grey stripes at the cuff and down the side of the jersey along with dark red and finally white at the side of the pants. The pants are silver.
SAN DIEGO FLEET
Another case where the helmet image doesn’t match the one shown on the uniform photo, the San Diego Fleet are grey, dark grey, and gold in their military-inspired uniform and logo set. The helmet mismatch is on the center striping, the uniform graphic shows a series of gold chevrons while the full helmet image showed nothing in this place. Like a few other teams in this league, the Fleet are going with the logo on only one side of the helmet and sticking the player number on the other.
All of these uniforms will be unveiled by their respective teams tonight at the various AAF Draft parties being held. The jerseys will then be made available for sale at the official website of the Alliance of American Football.
Check out our in-depth coverage of the AAF team logos here
