NEW YORK — James Benesh rode the 7 line last spring with one of his most critical tasks as an employee of the New York Mets.
He had to find the right purple.
Benesh, the Mets’ executive director of consumer products, carried with him a half-dozen swatches sent by Nike to compare with the purple circle on every 7-line sign. While there is an official, mandated purple of the 7 line, this is the subway, and the execution of that purple varies stop by stop.
Advertisem*nt
After about an hour hopping off trains and comparing the swatches to the signs, Benesh found it.
74th Street and Broadway in Jackson Heights. Pantone 2622C.
Deciding on that specific shade of purple was one of the final elements of the project Benesh and Andy Goldberg, the club’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, had managed for more than a year. On Friday morning, they could unveil their work to the fan base: the Mets’ new City Connect jerseys.
Brandon Nimmo was among the Mets players to provide input on City Connect jersey design: “We thought it’s going to be different but it’s going to be cool.” (Courtesy of the New York Mets)
Started in 2021, Nike’s City Connect series challenges teams to design a new uniform, distinct from their usual set, that tells a story about its home. The Mets are the 21st team to unveil a City Connect jersey.
For the Mets, the process with Nike started after the 2021 season. Nike issued a brief on what goes into a City Connect uniform, and Goldberg and Benesh filled out a 12-page questionnaire posing queries such as, “What does New York mean?” Nike sent five design concepts based on the answers, and the team gave notes or directions to scrap whatever look altogether; five more designs would follow.
Goldberg estimated the Mets and Nike went through 25 or 30 designs before landing on the one unveiled Friday.
The first major decision facing Goldberg and Benesh was how to interpret “city.” Should the Mets place the emphasis on their home borough of Queens, the way the Cubs and White Sox staked claim to Chicago neighborhoods with their jerseys? Or should they go with the more expansive (and frankly, marketable) landscape of New York City as a whole?
They opted for the latter, with the jerseys branded “NYC” across the front. (The Yankees, for what it’s worth, are one of two teams that will not participate in the program.)
“We actually had many designs with Queens across the chest,” Goldberg told The Athletic. “Frankly, the decision was that we are more than Queens. When you look at where the fan base is from, it’s not just Queens. In New York, we have fans in Queens, fans in Manhattan, fans in New Jersey, Brooklyn. We have such a huge fan base in Long Island.
Advertisem*nt
“Yes, the ball team plays here, but this is not just another uniform for the Mets. This is bigger than that, so take it way beyond just the central area around the ballpark. And that’s how we ended up with New York City.”
That decision meant myriad possibilities. San Francisco built a uniform around the Golden Gate Bridge, Houston around the space program. In New York …
“It doesn’t have one iconic thing,” Goldberg said. “It has many iconic things.”
And it has many iconic things already integrated into uniforms for the city’s other sports. The Rangers used the Statue of Liberty for years. The Nets have regularly drawn inspiration from New York’s art scene, the Knicks from the FDNY and the idea that the city never sleeps.
“We looked at them without overfocusing on them,” Goldberg said of other teams in the city. “We just wanted to know in the back of our heads that we weren’t just doing what they did with a different variation for baseball.”
Goldberg said they wanted to narrow in on that idea of connection and the experiences that bind everyone in New York together. In the uniform, that manifests largely in transportation.
The color of the jersey is dark gray with black speckles — asphalt. The purple from the 7 line is the primary accent color, and the sleeve patch is designed as an old-school subway token; the jersey’s pinstripes are made out of diamonds and circles representing the express and the local trains. The Queensboro Bridge appears on the hat, and its distinctive steel latticework is cross-sectioned on the sleeves and down the pant legs.
The Mets did carry over certain important elements of their core identity: The hat still has the usual interlocking “NY,” and the font used on the front and back of the jersey is taken from the road gray jerseys.
Several other teams have gone with dark pants; the last six City Connect jerseys to be unveiled featured navy or black pants. The Mets toyed with that idea before landing back with more traditional white pants.
Advertisem*nt
“We actually had a long discussion with Nike about that, and some of the feedback they were getting from players is that, if you have a very dark pant, it can get very hot,” Goldberg said. “So we also thought about comfort.”
Goldberg and Benesh solicited input from two Mets players: Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo. They’re the two signed through 2030 and beyond, after all.
“I think that’s why they gravitated toward us,” Lindor said. “They knew we were going to be here the longest and that we’re two different players in the way we view fashion. We aligned a lot on our thoughts.”
“Right from the beginning, I thought, ‘Oh, yeah,’” Nimmo said. “We thought it’s going to be different but it’s going to be cool.”
According to Goldberg and Benesh, the player reaction when players saw the jerseys in spring was universally positive.
“I think that’s the purpose of them, to be different,” said Edwin Díaz. “I really like them.”
“New uniform, new gear — every time we get new stuff, it makes you feel like a little kid,” Lindor said. “I can’t wait for everyone to see it.”
Goldberg and Benesh acknowledged that, given that this is a Nike project, the target demographic of the jerseys skews younger and to less experienced baseball fans. That said, they hope they’ve created something that will hit with all parts of the Mets fan base.
The Mets will wear the City Connect jerseys for Saturday home games starting next week against the St. Louis Cardinals and excepting the June 1 game, when Darryl Strawberry will have his number retired. The players could always opt to wear the uniforms more often.
When the City Connects are worn, the ballpark will “transform,” Goldberg said, with all the graphics on the scoreboard, ribbon video boards and concessions signs tailored to the different look.
“We have tried to think of every way to make the fan experience City Connect that night,” Goldberg said. “You will feel it come alive.”
Advertisem*nt
The City Connect program is slated to run in three-year cycles, meaning the Mets will wear this version through 2026. The club has contemplated evolving the City Connect merchandise that goes with the on-field look during that time. The subway map on the cap brim’s underside, Benesh pointed out, offers a large color palette to explore, if the Mets so chose.
On Friday, Goldberg and Benesh can show off the end result of their work to the entire fan base — even if they lamented that an online leak earlier in the week took some of the punch away from the reveal. What constitutes success for the design?
“I hope to see it just walking around New York,” Goldberg said.
And is there time to appreciate it now?
“It is our understanding,” Benesh said, “that in 5 minutes we start designing the next one.”
(Top photo of Francisco Lindor: Courtesy of the New York Mets)
