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March 5

Why do so many national teams wear non-flag colors?

With a little creativity all >200 countries and dependencies could theoretically wear one to all their flag colors (more or less, a tie-dye, Jackson Pollock, camo etc could technically have few or no pixels of a flag color but be a flag color or similar color on average, or heck a bicolor could do a Croatia with each square its own shade pattern so only each square would be flag color-ish on average) without any of the home uniforms looking alike. Also why is it that when national teams *do* want to wear flag colors cause they are and it'd also be possible for the goalies to wear a flag color without any of the 4 groups not contrasting with each other or with stereotypical referee clothes, then why don't they do that? Sometimes they force at least 1 goalie to wear a non-flag color the rest of the team never wears when they don't have to. Do the 5 groups all have to contrast to colorblind people too? For instance the first 22 World Cup game the goalies could've worn white and blue but actually wore bright green and salmon. Salmon is actually a more similar color to Qatar's red than Ecuadorian blue would've been. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:31, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In Australia's case, the flag is in colours imposed on the nation by the British, red, white and blue. The official National colours of Australia, most often used in sports uniforms, are green and gold, reflecting the colours of the golden wattle. The use of green and gold began at least as far back as 1899, actually predating the flag which was adopted in 1901. HiLo48 (talk) 22:58, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I mistakenly assumed they weren't your national colors. Australia makes sport a bit less unbalanced (some colors/combos have so many sports teams or national flags while other good colors/combos are much rarer than random chance) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:15, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An early use of green and gold for Australia was in the Baggy green, the cap still worn by the Australian Cricket Team. They played as Australia before Australia officially existed as a country. HiLo48 (talk) 04:05, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

HiLo48, the Australian National Flag (or an earlier similar version thereof) was chosen by Australians in a nation-wide competition in 1901. In 1903 a slightly modified version was approved by King Edward VII (the current version dates from 1908). I don't think it's true to say that it was imposed on us by the British. The King had the final say, but unless it had offended certain traditional flag rules or protocols, he essentially rubber-stamped the Australian decision. It wasn't his idea to include the Union Jack in the upper left quarter, that was all Australia's idea; we were all proud and loyal British subjects back then anyway. (We were still waving more Union Jacks than Australian flags when the Queen made her first few visits to Australia in the 1950s and '60s, even though by then we had become Australian citizens and she was visiting in her capacity as Queen of Australia, not as Queen of the UK.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:50, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Australian National Flag#1901_Federal_Flag_Design_Competition|1901 Federal Flag Design Competition section of that article you linked goes into considerable detail on how the flag was chosen. It was the result of a competition, rather than a vote by all Australians. I don't know who the judges for the competition were, but we do know from that article that entries were judged on seven criteria: loyalty to the Empire, Federation, history, heraldry, distinctiveness, utility and cost of manufacture. Meeting that first criterion of loyalty to the Empire pretty much meant using British colours. A green and gold flag just wouldn't have matched those criteria. HiLo48 (talk) 00:04, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

All true. (I never mentioned a vote, but a nation-wide competition.) But the competition and its criteria was not something imposed on us by the British, that's all I'm saying. Even if the criteria were skewed in favour of the British Empire, it was still we who chose the flag ourselves. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:08, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

American teams (other than a national team) will choose whatever colors they feel like using. I can think of several teams that use purple, besides the Vikings: Baltimore Ravens, Colorado Rockies, LSU Tigers, Northwestern Wildcats, and probably a number of others. As for Pittsburgh, the Steelers wore black and gold from the beginning, while the Pirates adopted those colors in the mid-1950s. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:18, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But that's purely about teams in domestic competitions. I think the original question was about national teams. HiLo48 (talk) 04:36, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Then why post the city flags? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:37, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. Good question. Obviously most teams in domestic competitions will not wear the colours of their national flag. HiLo48 (talk) 04:57, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unless it's coincidental. The Chicago Cubs wear red-white-and-blue, and while they're popular across the nation, they are not a national team otherwise. Some other MLB teams wearing RW&B include the Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox and Texas Rangers. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:06, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find any current national flags with black and yellow, orange and blue, orange, blue and white or more than 0.3% purple Dominica 0.3% is apparently the record. I don't know if any countries wear any of these. There are no flags over 6% brown either. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:35, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I note that Slovenia plays in green and white, whereas there is no green on its flag. In this case, I believe it's to distinguish itself from all its neighbours, whose flag colors are also predominantly red, white and blue. In the case of Italy playing in blue, I believe that use of the colour predates the adoption of the green/white/red national flag. You'll probably find similar explanations for most other seeming exceptions. Xuxl (talk) 13:34, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

National colours of Italy, Savoy blue and Flag of Italy say red white green is decades older than blue which is the House of Savoy color from Italian unification in 1861 to demonarchization in 1946 but it was the color of the Savoy-ruled part of Italy since before red white green was a thing. And that Italian athletes started wearing blue when playing Hungary (a red white green country) on 6 Jan 1911. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:40, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Netherlands flag is red, white and blue. Most of its sports teams paly in orange. HiLo48 (talk) 22:35, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cause from c. 1575 to a slow end 1630~1660 the red was the color of William of Orange (same dynasty as today). But that flag's apparently now mostly either Hitler puppet sympathizers or historical reenacters but solid orange is safe. So 1614-1652 is why a small blob of USA's the only part of Earth where so many places' current flags are "Dutch or French except orange & something superimposed". Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The England national football team play predominantly in white and blue, whereas the flag of England is white and red. Alansplodge (talk) 13:48, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was surprised to learn only the New Zealand soccer second colors is all black. The preferred kit is almost all white. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:44, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You expect the All Whites to primarily play in all black? Nil Einne (talk) 13:38, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well with their most famous team being All Blacks wouldn't they want to copy the rugby? The newfangled ODI and T20 is also black. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:22, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well as poorly explained in our article New_Zealand_men's_national_football_team#Kit, and better in sources [1] [2], play in an all black kit was not possible for a long time since it was the colour used by referees until 1994. And by the time an all black strip was I assume okay, the white strip and nickname was iconic enough that a change was unlikely. I mean as reflected in the sources, even now when there are actual reasons why the nickname is controversial, getting rid of it is equally controversial. But perhaps not so well explained in those sources, despite the long history of black being associated with NZ sports teams popularised in particular by the All Blacks [3], the trend of nearly every single NZ sports team having black as their colour is I think fairly recent. This [4] suggests around the turn of the millennium. The Black Caps famously used a beige kit once Beige Brigade, although coloured clothing in limited-overs cricket was fairly recent anyway arising from the World Series Cricket (see also History of cricket). Mind you, a lot of the international sports tournaments are some what recent anyway, so previously matches were much more restricted to friendlies and invitational tournaments, and the Olympics for sports which were part of that, so I'm not sure whether there even was a clearly defined colour for the teams once we start to hit the 1970s and earlier especially for NZ given our small size and isolation meant we were away from teams of Europe and the Americas, and in the absence of existing sporting links (like there was for cricket, rugby and some other sports) the games we'd play was probably limited. Nil Einne (talk) 10:36, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I remember seeing black NZ uniforms in the Olympics. In America a team might be able to get away with wearing all black as referees wear vertical black and white zebra stripes in most sports (not baseball. Their uniform is now dark shades almost as casual as jeans uniform getting more formal the further in the past till there's an 1852 drawing of an umpire in top hat, suit and tie. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:59, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One of the sources did mention NZ did compete in black in their first Olympics in 1920, as well as someone wearing black shorts with a silver fern in 1928 in boxing, and all gold medals in the Olympics being won by someone wearing black. While Stuff is a reliable source, I'm unconvinced they really did the research to check this is true for everyone of those 42 especially the earlier ones. But anyway even if it's true, there is a difference between black and (more or less) all black. Maybe I'm wrong but despite the long term association between black and NZ teams, I'm simply not convinced it was much of an extreme surprise if a NZ sports team or athlete wasn't wearing all black even when there was no rule based or other need (e.g. for the minor heat advantages like in the 2020 Olympics, simply the lack of such clothing) in the 1970s or earlier, or heck even in the early 1980s when the all whites started; as there is now. Nil Einne (talk) 07:32, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah with the global warming and urban heat island growth black will be uncomfortable more and more often. I did remember seeing New Zealand in black in at least one Olympic event. Maybe one of the team pursuits like the 2018 men's skating team pursuit where New Zealand was 1 place below bronze while wearing all black more or less. Maybe I've even seen the All Whites in soccer World Cup and just forgot. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 08:06, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]