Thunder to maybe get a new logo soon-ish?
Zach Lowe of Grantland ranked all 30 NBA logos today and guess what, the Thunder were dead last.
While the Thunder have done a remarkable job of branding throughout the state, it’s really been in spite of the logo and uniforms, and mostly on the fact the team and its players are awesome. The Thunder’s logo has been mocked since it was unveiled way back in 2008, and with last summer’s release of the Oklahoma City Blue’s hilarious logo, there’s not a strong history here.
But what’s most interesting from Lowe’s piece is that with the league transitioning to Nike sponsored uniforms in 2017, the logo may be getting a remodel:
No team has worse art, top to bottom, and Nike will push for an overhaul once it replaces Adidas as the league’s apparel partner in 2017. Nike and the Thunder are already talking, and the Thunder “haven’t ruled out” a more explicit weather-related secondary mark, Byrnes says.
Bad news: Oklahoma City seems locked into the shield motif and likely won’t replace it with a bison — or anything else. “To some extent, we are committed to the idea we have,” Byrnes says. “But we would not dismiss good feedback, particularly from Nike. We’re open to modernizing the logo, but we don’t have an appetite to overhaul it.”
The Thunder’s play with all these sorts of things is to go safe. They prefer conservative and solid rather than take the chance of doing something bold, and thereby, creative. I will say, however, the name and logo have grown on me, as things tend to do. It’s just kind of who they are at this point, and I’m not all that bothered by it. It’s impossible to please the everyone, so sometimes being vanilla is just the easiest thing to do. I wouldn’t say I like the logo now; I’m just used to it.
Teams have been refreshing logos quite often over the past few years, so it wouldn’t be wild for the Thunder to do that. And really, a small update it all that might be necessary. Clean up a few of the rough edges and make it slightly more, well, um, better.
