Right, brace yourself: the NFL – that American thing with helmets, shoulder pads and ads every 30 seconds is now doing football. Proper football.
In a move that’s either a stroke of marketing genius or the sartorial equivalent of dipping a burger in a cup of tea, the NFL has teamed up with Fanatics to launch what they’re calling the Football x Football Collection. Proper football, meeting with faux football.
As football’s slow-burning invasion of America continues – now with Messi, overpriced kits, and Premier League matches kicking off at breakfast – our cousins across the pond have decided to tip their snapbacks to the beautiful game. The result is a full set of 32 football shirts inspired by the aesthetics of classic football design. Every NFL team’s got one. And, in fairness, some aren’t half bad.
That’s likely because they aren’t the usual gimmick-heavy, neon-splattered American takes on football shirts. Designed by a globally-scattered team spanning Europe, South America and the US, each shirt carries a decent amount of thought. There’s club colours, heritage nods, and the kind of detailing that wouldn’t look out of place on a mid-’90s Marseille home top.
They’ve launched the collection at something called Fanatics Fest NYC, a three-day megamarket-meets-fan-convention. Sort of like Comic-Con, but instead of Deadpool cosplays, it’s blokes dressed like Tom Brady.
American fans get first dibs at the slightly surreal mash-up in the event’s revamped “Merchandise Village”, while international fans – unfortunately, that means us (even though we invented the game) have been told to “stay tuned” for limited releases via the NFL Shop.
As much as we can mock the NFL’s understanding of proper football, even we’ll admit the crossover here has been pretty well executed – we’re mostly looking forward to the reverse fixture though, Stoke City & Aldershot NFL tops will truly be something to behold.
Anyway, here are our ordered favourite picks. That Kansas City Chiefs top really is rather nice.
