Greetings!
Welcome to Uni Watch on Substack, where we deconstruct the finer points of sports uniforms, logos, and related topics in obsessive and excruciating detail. If you’re the kind of person who geeks out over things like jersey unveilings, team rebrandings, sleeve patches, sock stripes, uni numbers, facemasks (the football kind, not the Covid kind), team logos, team colors, and so on, then I have two important things to tell you:
You have come to the right place.
You can get as unapologetically nerdy as you want here, and nobody will roll their eyes or look at you funny. Once you start reading Uni Watch, you become part of a large comm-uni-ty of like-minded uniform obsessives — people who Get It™. We’re just as fascinated by this stuff as you are, and we all feed off of each other’s passion for uniforms.
I’m Paul Lukas. I created Uni Watch in 1999 as a column that ran in the sports pages of an alt-weekly paper here in New York, where I live. Since then, Uni Watch has existed in various forms on a variety of platforms, including a 15-year run at ESPN.com. Uni Watch’s longevity is a testament to my incredibly passionate and enthusiastic readers, who never cease to amaze me. They learn a lot from Uni Watch, but I also learn a lot from them, because they’re constantly submitting uniform-related observations, discoveries, long-overlooked historical details, and more. Like I said, we’re all one big comm-uni-ty. (Want to learn more about me? Look here.)
Here on Substack, I publish four feature-length articles per month, including the following:
Interviews with uniform insiders (like this one with longtime A’s equipment manager Steve Vucinich, and this one with Astros memorabilia authenticator Mike Acosta.
Periodic installments of the Uni Watch Power Rankings, where I rank uniform designs in various categories from worst to first, like this ranking of green uniforms and this ranking of MLB road uniforms.
My annual Uni Watch Season Previews for the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB, where I run down all of the new uniforms, logos, field/ice/court designs, and related items at the start of the season for the four major pro leagues.
Occasional design contests, where I challenge readers to redesign a particular team or event, like this one for MLB All-Star uniforms.
Quarterly “Ask Me Anything” columns, in which I do my best to answer reader-submitted questions, as seen here and here.
My annual Uni Watch Holiday Gift Guide, where I list my picks for the best and most interesting uni-related gifts for you to get for that special someone (or just for yourself!). Here’s the Gift Guide from 2021.
All of these articles will be presented in Substack’s clean, ad-free setting.
I can honestly say that there’s nothing else out there quite like Uni Watch, so I hope you’ll consider subscribing. Have any questions? Shoot me a note and I’ll happily respond. Thanks! — Paul
