Welcome to this website’s off-season sports sartorial content. We are counting down the world’s top 50 most iconic sports uniforms. Only current uniforms apply, we are not including one-off or alternate uniforms. Let’s stick to the basics.
#23
Dallas Cowboys
You may be thinking this is way too low for the Dallas Cowboys, currently the world’s richest sports franchise by a mile according to Forbes with a cool $9 billion valuation. Jerry Jones has at least done something right. I might argue the Cowboys shouldn’t even be on this list and if they are it should be with their blue jerseys. There, I said it.
The star on the Cowboys helmet is iconic, though. If this were a logo contest only they’d be way, way up there in the rankings. However, their uniforms as a whole are a lot more complicated and in this man’s opinion a bit overrated.
When the team was created as an expansion franchise for 1960 they wore white pants and white jerseys with blue shoulders. The famous star logo was on the lid from the beginning on top of a white helmet.
The basis for the modern uniforms came in 1964 with the switch to gray helmets with a brighter royal blue star logo. The jerseys dropped the blue shoulders in favor of a simple striping pattern and silver turquoise pants officially dubbed “Cowboys Star Blue.” The extra outline on the helmet star was released for the 1967 season when the blue was also darkened.
The shade of blue on the jersey was tweaked through the years and by the mid-1980’s the team was fully wearing a brighter royal blue. It’s a weird mismatch all the way around. The blue is now much darker on the helmets and isn’t seen anywhere else on the uniform, the jersey stripes are outlined in black for some reason, and of course the silvery pants always stick out–even if they are unusual.
cc: Publius
Not sure if Cowboys Star Blue qualifies as silver pants!
OK, you acknowledged and argued against it above but I’m still going to say it: this is way too low for the Cowboys. I mean, come on, look at that picture of Dolly Parton.
I would have bet the house on the Cowboys and Yankees in the top 3.
America’s Sweethearts: Top 3 lock.
To be clear, I do not like either of these teams. But: pretty iconic, IMO.
Cowboys, Yankees, Fighting Irish top three. The list of also-iconics starts at four.
I never noticed that the pants had a little blue in them. Always thought of them as silver. You learn something new every day.
Yup! Silver/blue vs. silver:
I think the pants were to look a certain way on tv back in the day, but now that you can look at it closely on tv, their uniform is just a jumbled mess.
Again, we are going for iconic uniforms and not best uniforms, so I guess this fits. I would have it even higher.
Even more obvious when you post them side by side. The blue does add a bit of a metallic look, compared to the gray. Even though the gray more closely matches the silver helmets. My eyes and brain are dealing with some serious dissonance right now.
I absolutely cannot come at this objectively. “Sucks” was the only bad word I was allowed to say as a kid in the 90s, and only if it was preceeded by “Dallas”. At least the almost 30 years since their last Super Bowl has been filled with misery and disappointment.
The uniforms are legitimately iconic though, much as I loathe them.
Eric, I agree with your gut instinct that the star is iconic, but the uniforms overall aren’t, and their best chance to sniff the top 50 would’ve been with the blue jerseys. But still, just outside.