The North American Soccer League is poised to announce a new ball and sponsor for the 2016 season. Under Armour will manufacture and sponsor the new ball which will for this year, veer away from the iconic look of the original 1975 NASL Adidas ball.
The more recent redesigns carried the original NASL star throughout with slight color shifts to match the newer branding of the current league.
Joma created the first ball for NASL 2.0 which was put in play in July of 2011. The look was fantastic but the ball was said to be less than desirable by the players that used it to make there living.
In 2014, the NASL switched to a Voit ball which the players loved and still kept the classic NASL look with the red star.
The new Under Armour ball is a dramatic departure from the iconic NASL look. It looks similar to the Desafio 595 Match Play Ball, has a more contemporary design and will have large red and blue arrowheads with the NASL logo on one side and a large UA logo on the opposite.
As news and images of the ball have been leaking out it’s created some negative comments on social media. And as we all know, if you have negative comments to spew, well, what better place to do so then on your Twitter account with all 23 people following you and hanging on your every word.
While I too was disappointed with the departure in classic styling, I’ve also tried to keep an open mind as to why the league may have moved away from the old ball. In my conversations about the business of our sport, more than once I’ve been known to say: it’s always easy spending other peoples money. My point is, there may be deeper underlying information which we didn’t know about – yet. I decided to dig around a bit and see if there was actually any news floating about that I could share with NASL supporters. This is what I learned from sources who knew of the league deal with Under Armour.
The NASL wasn’t getting a lot out of the Voit deal and was said to be more of an agreement than a partnership; not bad but not great either. Voit wasn’t doing much promotion of the ball and it was more like an exchange than a true business partnership. The league believes the new deal will be more far-reaching with UA promoting the ball along with it’s NASL partnership.
I also learned that the ball had been trialed with numerous clubs all with positive comments about it’s play which is important. A ball can effect the quality of play on the field.
UA has expressed the capabilities and interest of doing a much more custom design for the NASL in the future. To get the partnership off the ground this year they were only able to get the league colors instead of a complete custom rework. That future customization could someday include again the iconic red NASL stars.
As I did a little research on this topic I realized that to my knowledge, no league in the world uses a ball that is so brand specific as the NASL ball. Not MLS, not the Bundesliga, not La Liga and not even the Premier League. I’m sure someone will leave a comment here about some league I missed that does have a league branded ball. And I suppose the Champions League has a branded star ball but personally I see that more as a competition even though it’s called a league. The point is, most don’t have league branded balls and the style is usually contemporary, holding similar colors to the league logo with small branding for the league itself. Here are just a few examples.
Personally, I don’t blame the NASL for doing what is necessary as a league continues to grow and find their place in the expanse of North America. I can be critical of the overall look of the ball which to me seems a bit average with a NASL logo slapped on it. I get the change. I get the design for this year. But as to the overall look, I’m just not feel’n it.
I own an original 2011 NASL ball with the signature of the first league commissioner, David Downs. It’s tucked away safe and sound as a keepsake which is a good thing, because it may be a while before I see another iconic league ball like that again.
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