Brighton sign up for another three seasons of rubbish Nike kits
Brighton and Hove Albion have announced that they are extending their ‘technical partnership’ with Nike for another three seasons.
The new deal kicks in for this season, which means that Albion supporters can expect to have crap kits until at least the end of the 2021-22 campaign.
There was great excitement among fans when the Seagulls switched from Errea to Nike in 2014. Back then, it felt like a big deal to have one of the biggest sports brands in the world supplying the kit of little old Brighton.
But five years on and frankly, we can say it’s all been a bit shit. Firstly, the Albion have been supplied with standard Nike kits from a catalogue which any Sunday League side in the country could buy.
That led to one Albion fan actually purchasing the orange third shirt from THE 2014-15 season for £15 and just sticking their own Brighton badge on it.
You could do similar with the volt away kit of the following campaign and the black number from the promotion winning season.
Secondly, the cost has sky rocketed under Nike. Supporters can now expect to pay £52 for an adult replica shirt and these only last one season compared to the two years of use that normally came with Errea.
The designs have been extremely underwhelming, with this year’s home kit a case in point. While we can all appreciate it must be difficult to come up with different ideas for a shirt that has to be blue and white stripes, for 2019-20 Nike have essentially released an exact replica of the kit from two seasons ago, just with darker blue stripes.
No thought has gone into it. It’s almost like when you were a kid at school and you’d copy your mates homework, but make a few adjustments in the hope that the teacher wouldn’t notice so you could pass it off as your own. Oh, and have we mentioned that it will cost you £52 for the privilege of wearing it?
Most Albion supporters now hark back to the glory days when Errea would produce beautiful, bespoke kits. With a whole host of other ‘technical partners’ out there, many had hoped that our current deal with Nike would be the last.
Sadly though, money talks. Nike can obviously pay the most and that is what Paul Barber is interested in. As a result, it’s another three seasons of bland home kits when a move to another global sportswear brand such as Adidas or Puma could have broken the monotony. Sadly, we appear to be too big a club for Errea these days.
Such is life in the Premier League.
