Kit Colours and Consistency

As I said recently, I noted that one of the cycling commentators was discussing kit colours, and saying that the UCI are going to have to step in and ensure some sort of order appears among the kit colours: they want to promote the globalisation of the sport, they want more spectators, more viewers, more fans, but at present the colours are confusing, even to professional commentators such as themselves, and the constantly-changing names are baffling to new fans.

I've been saying this for years!! And here are my latest thoughts on the subject.

I think that there should be a set number of pro-teams (ie the 18 we currently have) and they should have permanent names, with the sponsor or owner having their name on the kit as well, but not as the primary name, in very much the same way that football clubs keep the same name, but have different managers, players, owners, backers etc from year to year.

So we would have Team X sponsored by Z. In much the same way that the continentals have Jelly Belly Cycling Team presented by MAXXIS. In that example, Jelly Belly are the main sponsor,  Maxxis are a smaller sponsor.  The biggest obstacle is going to be deciding on the main, permanent, identifying name. It clearly can't be a sponsor name, and it can't really be a country or town name either, as these things do tend to change.

But if we can get permanent names, then we can have a permanent association of colours with each name.

Here's my example:  Team One sponsored by Sky appear in black. If Sky decide not to sponsor, but Virgin want to step in, it becomes Team One sponsored by Virgin, appearing in black. With a huge red Virgin logo, and probably with red armbands or red stripe, but predominantly black. If the team fail to get enough UCI points to remain a pro team, then the Team One (dressed in black) slot comes available for a rising pro-conti team: if the failing team continue racing, they are known as Virgin and can have whatever kit colour they want. If they have a great year and return to the Pro Team circuit, they have to take whatever  Team Slot is available - they don't automatically get Team One in black back, they might be Team 17 with orange as their main kit colour. I don't think is wasteful of kit, as most teams redesign their kit every year anyway! As we know, the top 10-12 teams generally remain constant from year to year anyway.

I would expect that in everyday racing, the words Team One, Team Two etc would not be used, in the same way that Sky Procycling are known as just Sky, or Team Sky.

And obviously it would need a bit of thought to get 18 or so different kit colours - there would have to be a main colour and a secondary colour, I think - apart from Brown, where only Ag2R would apply for  it.

Perhaps they could have an auction, when it starts, and teams could bid for the colour they wanted - wouldn't that be a great opportunity for corruption!

Seriously, though, doesn't that make some sort of sense? It doesn't solve the problem of funding and reliance on sponsorship, but at least it's a step in the right direction, and might encourage team managers to try to "hang on" to their Team Number and kit colour, regardless of who is sponsoring them. It would provide more of an identity for a team: we could all recognise Euskaltel instantly - they are the ones in orange. It didn't matter if they were Euskaltel, Euskadi-Petronor, Equipo Euskadi, or Euskaltel-Euskadi - they were in orange, they were mostly Euskaltel, and they were instantly recognisable.  I would like to see that for all the other teams. 

I would be happier if someone could come up with a better suggestion than "Team One" for the basic naming, so do feel free to add your comments below!