Fanatics Comes Under Fire For Not Delivering Rangers, Brewers’ Uniforms on Time
The Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers were supposed to wear their City Connect uniforms on Friday, but Nike and Fanatics have not delivered them yet.
This article was updated on April 7 at 11:10 a.m. ET
Fanatics and Nike's run of bad PR in the MLB world isn't over just yet.
The Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers were widely expected to wear their City Connect uniforms Friday night, as has been their tradition for Friday home games. Multiple reports surfaced before their games, though, that they wouldn't be able to don their alternate threads after all.
The Dallas Morning News' Shawn McFarland reported Friday afternoon that Fanatics and Nike have yet to deliver the Rangers' City Connect uniforms. Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel came through with a similar report from the Brewers' perspective a few hours later.
However, as relayed to Fastball by a Fanatics representative, that should not have been a surprise for the teams themselves.
Each MLB club apparently provided Fanatics with desired shipping windows for each of their uniforms back in December. As has always been the case, per Fanatics, those dates ranged from March 18 to mid-May, since the manufacturer couldn't get players' measurements until Spring Training.
The remaining uniforms that haven't arrived yet – such as the Brewers and Rangers' City Connects – were not even scheduled to be shipped until later this month, let alone in time for Friday's games. All uniforms are expected to make it to teams no later than May 7, which is actually slightly ahead of schedule. The Brewers and Rangers' uniforms, specifically, are still on track to arrive before the teams' next Friday home games on April 26.
Still, many people online pounced on Fanatics when McFarland and Hogg's reports surfaced. The company has been a punching bag of sorts ever since the new MLB uniforms were revealed in February, with mismatched colors, cheap-feeling material and smaller lettering all drawing ire.
Many of the issues with the uniforms, however, are now being pinned on Nike, who designed them.
An article by The Athletic last week went in-depth on everything from players' opinions on the uniforms to the manufacturing process. Fanatics has simply been working with what has been provided to them by Nike and MLB, yet the company's spotty reputation with fans and their direct ties to the supposedly-inferior products have led to most of the blame going their way.
Fanatics has been manufacturing MLB jerseys the same way Majestic did before they acquired the company in 2017. Using the same factory and timetable hasn't shielded them from criticism, though, and public opinion doesn't appear to be swaying much either.
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