Grading the Orlando Magic’s new uniforms and logo rebrand as they go back to their roots

Sometimes, the best thing a sports team can do for their jersey rebrand is go back to what worked before.

The Utah Jazz have done it with their new jerseys, and now the Orlando Magic have brought back the 90s with their rebrand, a much needed boost for a team that’s on the precipice of contention in the East.

Let’s just start off with the good, because there’s a lot of it: the white jersey immediately is in contention for one of the best jerseys in the league. The star being used for the A again is really cool and I like the size of the lettering on the front of the jersey. The pinstriping on all of them is also really good, a reminder that we need small pinstripes on more jerseys. I also like the blue ones as well, it feels traditional but the smaller Orlando font could’ve been a bit better. I do understand why they didn’t go with the Magic on the blue jersey though; in hopes of making a modern jersey with homage to the past, they didn’t just want to copy word for word. However, they could’ve in this case and made it work.

I’m also a big fan of their new logo, the star with the basketball is a really good and fun touch. Always a fan of incorporating the basketball into a logo design, like the Heat.

The court is also very nice, feels like they nailed the aspect of a modern reinvention of a classic.

The one thing I would change is the black jersey, however. I get why they went with the blue paneling over the black, it’s an homage to the old warmup jerseys:

However, I think the paneling works on a longer sleeve uniform better than a tank top, mainly because you can keep the blue going all the way through the arm, like the warmups did here. Still a fan of the pinstripes and the Magic font on this jersey might be better than the blue one, but the paneling takes it down for me.

Overall, I give this rebrand an A. Yeah, I wasn’t too big of a fan of the black jersey because of the blue, but they nailed the other two jerseys, the logo is awesome and the court is great too. Because my girlfriend is a Magic fan, I’m sure I’ll end up wearing this one day (the things you do for love).