I gotta say, RZA feat. GZA “Liquid Swords” is a really good gym listen folks.
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Come on guys! Dont hate me, but I’d like to challenge a few of you to look at this update through a different lens.
First, I agree with @XHoo. The slightly modified V-Sabre is still the primary logo and is not being replaced by the secondary ones. (PS. Id like to subjectively say that the minor modification with the bevels on the V dont really complicate the logo much in my opinion, it just adds a lighting effect as if the light source was coming from the right. It adds dimension, and thus a bit of “pop” but that is all it adds. There are no extra graphics, which would complicate it for sure.)
Second point. It doesnt really matter what the update would of been, our human psychology dictates that we will not feel comfortable with change. So statistically speaking, I sure no matter what the updated logos would be, the hardcore fans overwhelmingly would not feel comfortable changing something they already love. To better understand what I’m trying to explain, I’d like to pull a quote from a psychological piece that is linked at the bottom.
"It’s not just that people fear change, though they undoubtedly do. It’s also that they genuinely believe (often on an unconscious level) that when you’ve been doing something a particular way for some time, it must be a good way to do things. And the longer you’ve been doing it that way, the better it is. So change isn’t simply about embracing something unknown – it’s about giving up something old (and therefore good) for something new (and therefore not good).
Final point for now. So Ive seen many of you guys wanting to keep the old logo and even asking to bring back the really old school logo. What if we did? It might appeal to an old school segment of our fandom and a few super dedicated fans. Do we actually gain anything from that? Does it really appeal to the younger generations that we are trying to recruit? I seriously doubt it. It would put us at a disadvantage if we were “too stuck in our old ways” to modernize while all the other schools are. I feel confident that these logos are keeping up with the times and UVA and Nike are doing what is best. Nike is a branding professional. I know they run all kinds of polls and surveys and understand what is popular and what is not. Trust me, our subjective minds that are distorted and bias because we are emotionally passionate about the program are not the best judges to understand what will be the most appealing to outsiders. That is what marketing is all about. Boil it down, we are trying to gain more customers, recruits, and become a overall more successful program. So we cant let our emotional attachments get in the way of that. We are in a very fierce competition with hundreds of other schools. Dont be K-Mart who didnt keep pace with its completion by updating its stores. Dont be former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer who in 2007 laughed at a new button-less iPhone concept.
No hard feelings anyone. I really love this forum!
Microsoft Steve Ballmer Laughing at a buttonless iPhone in 2007.
A quick read on our human psychology and why we dont like change.
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Interesting points man. I agree that no one will like change of anything… at first. I’m sure we’ll grow to love this new look. Take your example of the iPhone, I don’t remember anything cause I was I was 2 years old at the time, but it seems like some people were NOT on board with it. And look at it now, billions of people around the world carry an iPhone in their pocket. I have even grown to like it more and more throughout the day. Looks awesome in the shirt mockups, designs, and everything like that. Like it or not right now, I know that we’re all going to grow to love it. Even if you don’t end up liking it, it’s just a uniform and that won’t stop us from loving our wahoos.
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Right on. I completely understand that people dont like it. But I really feel confident that at the moment we are feeling an expected amount of emotional shock. It will ware off and mentally our brains will adapt and even start to like it over time. In the end it is likely a more marketable design coming from the brains of branding professionals that have no emotional ties whatsoever to the program we all love so passionately.
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Definitely. We all are going to grow to love this and passionately wear these shirts and jerseys every gameday. If anything, it gave us something to talk about today and excite about all day, when there simply hasnt been any of that for over a month and there wont be anything else for hoo knows how long. Like you said, these guys are professionals and they work for Nike for a reason. We’re going to grow to love it, I know it. (With this being said, I’m not a huge fan of the new slogan “We Cavaliers”)
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I like your comments guys but we don’t have to like it. Change is good, and inevitable in life. However, I lived in Portland for 13 years and played soccer for the NIKE OPL team when I was 27-30. I knew multiple people that worked there. They are not familiar with the East coast, they don’t understand the history. They are concerned with disruption. It makes them money. It’s why Oregon was good at FB and why they are now finding BB players. They will do anything to be important and relevant. It’s a business decision. They don’t understand our school, no matter what the video shows. They probably visited for 48 hours. It is not a big deal in the long run, we still support the players and the teams, but we don’t have to like the changes. It’s pandering to a different crowd, we shouldn’t need to do it. I’m fine with it all and I support everything Carla does. However, I don’t like the logos.
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Just wanted to say one last thing. The people on this forum totally rock! I reposted my same opinion on a couple facebook UVA fan pages and Im getting completely trashed and belittled. Lots of insecure people live their lives out on social media. You guys are really great, and even though opinions differ, you keep cool heads. I applaud the cool and collected members of this forum!
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So I completely respect your opinion, and agree with the point that whenever we made a change, there was going to be resistance to it. I also agree that the changes to the v-saber, our primary logo, are not particularly significant and I have no huge issues with them. In fact, I think it’ll probably look particularly good sewn into the uniforms. And I even kind of like the new font (although I hate the numbering with the little swishes in it, but whatever, that’s easier to quietly ditch and hopefully only affects football uniforms).
However, change is not always good just because it is change. This might seem obvious, but the actual quality of what you are changing to also matters. IHOP trying to become IHOB was a disaster. The history of sports teams is littered with garbage logos and ideas created by highly paid professionals that were quickly abandoned because they were just bad. Maybe some of us don’t like the secondary logos just because they are new. But I can say, for myself, I really honestly don’t think I will ever like them.
That is because I think they are fundamentally ugly and incredibly lame. They took the least cool thing associated with UVA - the feathered hat - and decided to make that the center piece. The colors are all so dark everything is muddled, it doesn’t feel at all retro, no clean angles or colors. It feels like its from 2005 not 2020. Now I also totally take your other point - if the kids and recruits love it, what does it matter? We have to stay with the times, and maybe some of us aren’t with the times anymore, haha. But I think I have a vague enough understanding of what folks currently like to say that that ain’t it. I’ll very gladly eat my words if we start seeing high school players and our young alums rocking those logos and good merch sales, but I just don’t see that happening.
I think what frustrates me most is that this feels like such an unforced and unnecessary error. Just focus group test this stuff before you roll it out! I refuse to believe that they could show multiple options to a group of fifty 20-year-olds and those secondary logos are the ones they would pick. And there are so many better options that float around instagram and twitter all the time! I guarantee you some of the folks we have making posters and doing merch for this site would have made something infinitely cooler.
Anyway, you’re totally right that in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a huge deal. Just arguments over secondary logos. But I love our uniforms and our brand, and am really actually kind of bummed about having to see those incorporated into it for a few years. But who knows, maybe we will all come to accept it when we win another championship.
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Just posting again to compare the two. I think most are warming up to this update. Just my opinion, the main difference is the new one is going to be a bit more bold and noticeable. It uses both primary school colors, and it is a bit more three dimensional, so it has more pop to it. I think it is good marketing. Just my opinion. Just consider for a second if we would of had the logo on the right for the past ten years and we would of switched to the much more simple design on the left. I truly believe the uproar would be even stronger to that change.
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I think the new V-Sabres is a clear upgrade (as someone who has never warmed to the V-Sabres in general). Clearly easier to read in all the places I’ve seen it so far.
We need to see some real uniforms to gauge the ‘impact’ of all this.
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It looks a loot like Tech’s
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My opinions: The primary logo is okay, but I would have liked the old one better. The Cavalier looks really straight-up tough and that is a logo I can get behind. Not as a primary logo, but as a secondary logo some true fans wear. The shield is useless, it is basically just the headless cavalier on a plaque.
I was honestly mad when I watched the ‘new generation of orange and blue’ video. Nike tried to trick us into thinking that they actually used designs from the Rotunda and the Mountains to inspire their shape. I saw a Rams fan who said that Nike did the same thing for their new logo, with the LA Olympic Stadium. They tried to pull a fast one on us, and I did not like it as a fan of the tradition of the school.
The thing I am most mad about is the lettering and the colors. If you watch the video very slowly, you can see new basketball jerseys with blue lettering that looks like our practice jerseys. The orange made us pop from everyone else. The only way that they are going to make up for the blue lettering are some orange alternate jerseys. Finally, our lettering looks a lot like Virginia Tech’s that they have been using for a while now.
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The Duke view
The thing that Virginia is missing is that, thanks to Tony Bennett, the Cavaliers have arrived. And when you have arrived, you don’t need to overhaul things. Your logo, your brand, is already powerful. It becomes iconic.
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Agree with everything here.
I think the overall consensus is the updated V-Sabre will do fine. Its a bit more bold and has a little more dimension. Understandably may take some time to get used to for many. Most of the uproar is over the two secondary logos. Im trying to figure out what they replace? I believe it is just a reason to have more items to sell, and reach a broader market. Im sure all the passionate old school fans will still have retro gear always available. Honestly the amount of gear that displays the Cavalier is very limited. You have these guys…
…which probably appeals more to the 40+ year old fan base. Nothing wrong with that. But there really isnt any contemporary cavalier mascot logo or design that I can find which is being replaced. Somebody please call me out if Im wrong here.
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They put this info out tu take the focus off the master plan being suspended. They thought it would cheer people up after being disappointed about the master plan decision. But it back fired because these logos suck. We Cavalier is so UVA LIKE. Meaning corny and nerdy. We Cavalier. We all say Lets go Hoos. Not Lets go Cavaliers. Grade F.
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What is the master plan that has been suspended?
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The new sports complex
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Any ideas?
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more emojis? hahahaha
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