Over the weekend, the San Antonio Spurs expanded their logo repertoire with the addition of three new black-and-silver alternate logo options.
C’mon… no “fiesta” colours?
The designs were introduced as part of the Spurs’ 50th anniversary celebrations planned for the 2022-23 season. They include a Texas-centric design and two which utilize the “SATX” shorthand name for the City of San Antonio, Texas; all three of the designs (as do the Spurs’ two other existing logos) feature a stylized spur.
The San Antonio Spurs “are expanding their visual identity to include three new secondary logos,” read the release from the team. “These new marks help broaden the team’s brand with three adaptable logos while staying true to the Spurs iconic legacy.”
The first of the three new logos is the “Texas alternate logo”. It shows a state map of Texas in silver with a black outline; a sizeable white spur cuts into the state. The centre of this spur shape contains a black dot which I assumed indicated the location of San Antonio, but after dusting off my 5th grade atlas, it looks like it’s pointing to Austin instead. Hey, Texas readers, please feel free to chime in on this.
“Modern yet minimal,” the Spurs say about this logo. “This Texas crest connects fans across the globe to the heart of our home.”
LINK: San Antonio Spurs logo and uniform history
Two other logos incorporate this new “SATX” wordmark logo, one of which is the wordmark on its own, which includes an underscore with a spur at the end of it, and the other places this logo on a black basketball.
“A shorthand for the city of San Antonio, this new letter mark highlights our hometown, our region and our state in just four letters,” says the Spurs.
Now begins the brief countdown to introducing a new “SATX” City or Statement Edition uniform, right?
The Spurs introduced a 50th anniversary logo for the upcoming season earlier this month. The commemorative mark brings gold into the Spurs’ usual black and silver look, with five spurs indicating their five all-time NBA championships.
None of these logos will replace any of the team’s existing logos, the primary logo, “SPURS” arched mark with the “U” as a spur, will carry on into the 2022-23 season and presumably beyond. The Spurs last altered their primary logo in 2017 but have used some variation of this wordmark, with or without a colourful accompaniment, since their first season back in the American Basketball Association in 1973.