Fanatics is in a whole lot of trouble right now with see-through pants, off-centered numbers, and basically being summed up as T-shirts with buttons. MLB The Show 24 has its own fallout from this to consider, but it’s not really a new problem.
The eternal struggle for all baseball video games is its history. A battle against licensing and time, there are countless jerseys that are always requested for the latest official MLB game. But on top of the never-ending requests to get jerseys into the game, now SDS has to worry about what Fanatics has done to these jerseys.
Now, SDS is not under the same pressure as Fanatics is right now, but with such vitriol being splashed in the direction of MLB/Nike/Fanatics by players and fans, what does SDS do with the jerseys? We’ve only seen limited looks at present-day MLB players in MLB The Show 24 so far, but it does seem that ads have made it to the jerseys (and the MLB logo was moved down a bit to its new spot).
Beyond that, how much will SDS transfer from what Fanatics is doing right now? You can point to any number of teams, but basically some of the changes include white going to off-white, Cubbie blue becoming a slightly different blue, the lettering and numbering having a new curvature to it, and on it goes.
By the looks of things, SDS has not taken into consideration some of the color changes and the curving tweaks to lettering and numbering. The issue is we don’t know how old some of the footage is we’ve seen so far. It’s an awkward thing to say, but is this one of those instances where fans will hope SDS doesn’t make things as “authentic” as possible? I know some are already going to be bummed that ads have made it onto the jerseys, so it’s just something to consider.
I’m also not sure how much say SDS even has in the matter. Beyond saying it’s not in the scope for development, I assume MLB has to pressure SDS to get the jerseys in to look as authentic as possible, but that’s an educated guess to some degree. And it also depends on what happens with the jerseys overall because it does seem like changes are going to have to be made to them.
In the short term, maybe that means fans get stuck with the cheap jerseys and the players get updated ones that look and feel better — and those are the ones ultimately in The Show. However, I wonder how much work SDS has put into the new look/colors/lettering that they may have to scrap, or maybe these were such a surprise that even SDS has not even been thinking about it.
Regardless of what happens with the present-day jerseys, we’re all hoping for more jerseys in the game and more franchise mode freedom as well. Folks on the forums have a uniform schedule they used last year since the CPU teams only picked Home/Away jerseys, and things like Uniform Lineup were an invaluable resource for keeping things fresh. At the very least, it would be dope if SDS started to understand certain “jersey scheduling” mainstays that MLB franchises have and started incorporating them into the coding for franchise mode.
