Next April, Reebok's contract with the NFL will expire and Nike will take over as the official merchandiser of the league. What this means is Reebok's generally bad retail items will be gone, as will the NFL's current jerseys.
Nike plans to waste little time in putting their new deal with the NFL to use. Darren Rovell spent Tuesday at Nike's campus in Oregon and learned that Nike will start releasing items for retail as soon as their contract begins in April 2012. Also, Rovell got the scoop on Nike's plans for the uniform changes teams will undergo.
So I asked Denson the all-important question: How much will you change it up?
"We're going to be aggressive," Denson said. "Some teams are willing to go further than others."
More traditional franchises that have had the same uniforms for an extended period of time are going to be less likely to make changes beyond adding the Nike logo to their uniform. Some teams, however, may be willing to go the Oregon route and have some, well, different jerseys that people will either love or hate. Oregon has garnered a lot of attention for its jerseys, and I could certainly see a team coming up with some radical looks for the added attention.
Will the Lions be a team that goes the Oregon route? I can't see it happening. Their Nike uniforms may look a bit different than the current ones, but after just rebranding two years ago, I doubt there will be any drastic changes.