Timberwolves Re-Brand: A Celebration, Part One

At long last, the Timberwolves are almost ready to change-up their logo and uniforms.

It’s about freaking time, isn’t it?! This has been a long time coming. As in, like, a decade and a half.

According to the MSP/St. Paul Biz Journal, Glen Taylor has finally given the ‘okay’ to re-brand the Timberwolves. On the other hand, Taylor Glen told Darren Wolfson on his Scoop Podcast a few months ago that a re-brand wasn’t in the team’s short term plans.

Why the quick change, and should we believe him now? For the purpose of this article, let’s assume sanity took over and we can take Glen as his most recent word.

In Part One of this post I’ll attempt to handle the first gamut of a potential Wolves re-brand: how terrible the logo and uniforms are now and what it would mean to finally have a decent re-brand.

Part two will cover some recent re-brands from teams that got it right, some recent re-brands gone horribly wrong, current suggestions by others, and finally my own recommendations.

First off, let’s go over just how terrible the logo and uniforms are now and how embarrassing it is that they’re just finally replacing them.

The Timberwolves haven’t changed their primary logo in over 20 years. In the NBA that is an eternity, unless you have one of the classic logos (more on those later). Paul Lukas of UniWatch at ESPN describes the Wolves as “one of the NBA’s worst-looking teams for what feels like forever”.

May 17, 2016; New York, NY, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns represents his team during the NBA draft lottery at New York Hilton Midtown. The Philadelphia 76ers received the first overall pick in the 2016 draft. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

When the Wolves came out with the above logo, it was during a time in the mid 90’s when both logos and uniforms were almost cartoonishly big and over designed.

Take a look at some other teams that re-branded or introduced their logos during that time: the Raptors, the (then Vancouver) Grizzlies, the Hawks, the Rockets, and the Bucks. All of these uniforms were replaced so long ago by their respective teams that they’ve actually come full circle and become retro cool again.

During that entire time span, from the mid-90’s until now, the Wolves have had the same logo (they did make some tiny changes in ’08). When the Wolves had a 90’s themed game last season they wore their current uniforms — think about that. The Wolves branding is like overalls: they weren’t that cool in the 90’s and they definitely still aren’t cool now!

Okay, try now to count the number of colors in the Timberwolves’ logo.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

I count seven colors (black, white, grey, blue, green, yellow, and red). It was probably difficult for you to find them all because, you know, it’s freaking hard to spot seven colors in that small of a space. Now think about some of the best NBA logos out there: the Bulls, Heat, Celtics, Warriors, and 76ers. (This isn’t just my opinion; Zach Lowe had them all in his top-ten, and so did this list; the Wolves meanwhile, were 27th and 28th, un-respectively.)

With all of those logos, there are one, maybe two primary colors (excluding black and white). Meanwhile, the Wolves have five. As Zach Lowe stated in his article, NBA logos are placed onto small pieces of real estate on the uniforms; there simply isn’t enough space for all that clutter and busyness. Especially when the Wolves are also adding their mouthful of 21 letters (Minnesota Timberwolves) to the logo. Cripes.

So we’ve established the Timberwolves’ logo stinks. What about the uniforms themselves? Take a look:

Nov 7, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Bulls guard Jimmy Butler (21) drives past Minnesota Timberwolves forward Nemanja Bjelica (88) and guard Andrew Wiggins (22)during the first half at the United Center. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

Trees. In different shades. How boring are your uniforms when the only object on them is trees?! I actually fell asleep scrolling through the images of their uniforms before choosing that one.

Also, here’s a tip: when you have blue uniforms with nine white letters in a small space don’t border that lettering with black lines! Or did you not even notice the black bordering? Trust me, it’s there, and it’s not good.

So, basically, the Timberwolves uniforms are so bad that they manage to be too busy but also boring at the same damn time. Quite an impressive feat, really.

I will admit that the white home uniforms aren’t as bad:

Nov 26, 2014; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves guard Andrew Wiggins (22) and guard Zach LaVine (8) against the Milwaukee Bucks at Target Center. The Bucks defeated the Timberwolves 103-86. Mandatory Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

The blue border and black lettering contrast much better with the white. Plus, ‘Wolves’ is written much larger and is much less busy than the ‘Minnesota’ on the blue uniforms. As for the alternate jersey?

Mar 25, 2016; Washington, DC, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves guard Ricky Rubio (9) prepares to shoot the ball as Washington Wizards forward Markieff Morris (5) defends during the first half at Verizon Center. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Ugh. At least it’s a simple design. But can we all just agree that sleeved jerseys are a horrible marketing monstrosity from the NBA and move on? Okay, great.

The Timberwolves’ alternate uniform is especially disappointing when you consider the other options they could go with just by reaching into their past. But more on that in Part Two.

But now that we’ve established my reasons for (strongly) disliking the Timberwolves logo and uniforms I’d like to explain how a full re-brand could and should be a big deal for them.

First of all, from a business perspective, it makes absolute sense to re-brand now. The franchise has gone through a complete overhaul over the past few years and with all their positive momentum (great young roster, newly hired top-tier head coach, renovations under way at Target Center) it makes sense to overhaul the branding now to fully capitalize.

As this young roster starts to win games in bunches people will start filling in the Target Center and merchandise will be flying off the shelves. If you look at the top NBA teams in terms of merchandise sales they nearly all have something in common: they are winning teams and/or rank high in the uniform/logo rankings.

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If the Wolves get their re-brand right and begin winning games soon there’s no reason they can’t join the top 10 on that merchandise sales list and reap the extra millions in revenue those teams are generating. Not coincidentally, nearly all of the top teams in merchandise sales also led the NBA in total revenue for the 2014-2015 season, per statista.com.

Yes, some of those teams are at the top mostly because they’re in big markets (cough, Lakers, Knicks, Nets, cough). But there’s some small and mid market teams in the top half that the Wolves are undoubtedly chasing. Glen Taylor confirmed this goal on his most recent appearance on the Scoop Podcast. Merchandise sales from a great re-brand would go a long way towards reaching those teams’ revenue levels.

Those higher revenue levels, if invested properly, could help take the Wolves to new heights and help them maintain continued success into the future (funding for an actual D-league team comes to mind, as well as not having to sell off 2nd round picks to pay for firing terrible coaches).

Okay, enough about the team’s chances to make a bunch more money. How about what a re-brand will do for the fans and the reputation of the team league wide? Simply put, it could be huge. As an entertainment product, it’s very important that the Wolves, you know, actually look good.

A team’s logo and uniform has a direct connection to the fans. Take a look at the Wolves’ first uniform. Makes you a little nostalgic to the innocent, early days of the team doesn’t it? Now how about the glory days uniforms? Those remind me of when the Wolves had one of the best and most likeable players (KG) in the league and the Target Center was a place to be. KG never led the team to the Finals, but they competed with the best in the league for almost a decade.

Now think of what you see when you look at the current uniforms. The current iteration of the Wolves uniforms remind me of ineptitude, horrible trades, worse drafting, embarrassing levels of losing year after year, Al Jefferson’s DUI, clanked Rubio jumpers, the fact that the Wolves could’ve drafted Steph Curry but took Johnny Flynn instead, and most importantly, KAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHNNNN!