The Bucks unveiled their new royal blue City uniforms last Friday and wore them during Milwaukee’s 113-98 victory against Cleveland on Wednesday night at Fiserv Forum. And, as part of embracing the new shade of blue in their attire, the franchise even added a royal hue to its hardwood inside the arena.
While Bucks fans were excited for the new uniform combination, they also were eager to know whether the franchise would ever wear its cream-colored City design again, similar to what the Bucks wore during the 2017-18 and 2019-20 seasons. As the demand for answers increased on social media, Bucks chief marketing officer Dustin Godsey tweeted a perplexing response a week ago that he knew fans would not want to hear.
Godsey, however, also knew fans wanted a reason for the decision.
“Just because I’ve seen it a bunch today: we aren’t allowed to do cream-colored jerseys anymore. There are reasons, but suffice it to say it won’t appease anyone to get into it, so I’ll just say: we would if we could,” Godsey tweeted on Nov. 10.
Godsey recently provided specifics about the situation to sports uniform expert Paul Lukas in an exclusive Q&A, revealing that the Cream City uniforms “interfered with digital ads” that are placed on the court for broadcasts. The clash is due to the uniform color being “so close to the color of the wood that is keyed out in the process,” Godsey told Lukas via email.
Godsey said the issue first became apparent when the Bucks wore the Cream City uniforms during an Aug. 2, 2020, game at the NBA bubble in Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Up until that point, there had been no issues,” Godsey told Lukas. “… Because of the unique situation there, with every game being played on a neutral site, teams were able to digitally put their arena naming rights onto the court during their local TV broadcasts. And because of that, in that first game of wearing cream down in the bubble, we started to realize it was kind of like the meteorologist wearing a green shirt while standing in front of the green screen — a pixelation effect.”
The Bucks still do have uniforms with cream accents and trim of cream. But that does not hinder or blur the vision of the ads, according to Godsey, because the “amount of cream is so small and the players are moving so fast.”
“If you were looking at a super-high resolution and really zoomed in, probably there would be some pixelation,” Godsey told Lukas. “But you don’t really pick up any of that under normal conditions.”
