We’re updating this article with news about the LA Galaxy Community Kit and what you can expect when you purchase one.
UPDATE (3.18.2021) — So we’re 10 days removed from the last time we talked about the Community Kit and we’ve got some changes for you. And it’s going to be because the Galaxy made some changes as well.
ARAUJO KITS: Let’s start with the good. Julian Araujo tweeted out his fix for those of you who received a no. 22 kit instead of his new number, no. 2.
And if you’re worried about giving up that 22 because of the “collectibility” of it, don’t worry. I was told last week that you’ll be able to keep the no. 22 and still get no. 2.
That should provide a fix for everyone who wants that no. 2. Just don’t wait too long on this. Get it into the Galaxy ASAP and take advantage of that deal.
MLS PATCHES: Did you see the “leaked” photos from the Galaxy’s media day yesterday? Well I did, because they were immediately sent to us when everyone noticed one very important thing — the double sleeve sponsor and no MLS patch. So that makes about the 10th different version of the authentic I’ve seen (we’re exaggerating, but the number definitely tops five).
Here’s what we know. The jersey the players will be wearing on the field for 2021 will include both sleeve sponsors — the right sleeve is Honey and the left sleeve is Herbalife. There will be no MLS patch.
There’s a reason for the late switch from having an MLS patch to not having one, and that all revolves around Herbalife and their over 15-year relationship with the Galaxy. When MLS made the space available for the Galaxy to sell, they offered it to Herbalife, and the deal came together. That all happened over the course of the last week or so. In fact, I was told it might not even be officially signed off on yet. But it needed to be included for the shirts and official photos and videos for media day because that’s the official uniform.
But if you’re fine with the switch and want to get the Herbalife logo on your kit, you’ll need to pump the brakes. Preliminarily, the Herbalife logo will not be available at retail on any kit. And it may have to do with some MLS rules that prohibit the second sponsor from being offered at retail. How very MLS of them.
At current, the Galaxy still have plans to offer the fixes I discussed below and there may even be some talk about offering the Honey patches and MLS patches for free to Season Ticket Members, but that’s not finalized yet. But of course now, that would mean making your jersey look even less like the actual kit that the players will wear.
But here’s the very bottom line; unless you’re going to get a game-worn kit, there is, as of right now, no physical way to get a jersey that looks like the one on the field. And that’s a real big disappointment for a beautiful kit.
UPDATE (3.8.2021) — We’re a week since our last update on the Community kit issues and we wanted to give you another update on some of the issues that have popped up since the kit was launched.
Below, we’ll address the updates the LA Galaxy provided to CoG on the MLS Patch, Honey Logo, and Araujo kit issues.
- MLSStore.com — If you bought your authentic kit from the MLS Store then it should be coming with BOTH a Honey logo and an MLS Patch. Currently, the MLS Store is sold out of Authentic LA Galaxy Community Kits. They are working on the kit’s 3rd restocking and we’ve asked to be notified once they’re back in stock.
- TeamLAStore.com — If you bought your authentic kit from the Team LA Store, then your kit will NOT have a Honey logo on it and will NOT have an MLS patch. If you did get the honey logo it’s because it was part of the promo at launch (first 100 jerseys ordered who used the coupon code at checkout). For whatever reason — and I’ve heard a couple of different reasons — the MLS patches are not available from the Team LA Store. But the Galaxy tell CoG that they are finalizing a deal that would see fans, who bought from the TLA store, get the MLS patch and the Honey logo patch heat pressed for a small fee. That fee hasn’t been disclosed yet, but we’re hearing it’s closer to $5.00 than it is to $15.00. The Galaxy will inform fans of where and when that will become available once the details have been ironed out but it’s coming. And for $185.00 — much higher than the MLS Store’s $165.00 for the same kit with patches — it should be fixed. But if you live far away from the stadium, especially if you’re out of state, then that might not be a solution for you at all.
- Season Ticket Member Discounts — The Galaxy were a little slow in getting out STM discounts before the product launched. And for that reason, they’re extending the discount to retroactively apply to your orders from the Team LA Store. So if you ordered from the TLA store you can contact them with your STM code, and they will credit you the difference for that. But don’t wait too long on that!
- Araujo 22 Kits — If you ordered a Julian Araujo kit and it came with the No. 22, then the Galaxy have a solution for you. And it’s one that will make you complete and it’s what we’d call a “perfect solution” to that issue. The Galaxy have a planned announcement on this, so just hold tight and keep that collector’s edition handy.
That’s our update for now. We’ll let you know when any of these programs kick in and you can start getting things setup to make your kits truly authentic.
UPDATE (3.1.2021) — The LA Galaxy provided CoG with the following update regarding the launch of the Community kit.
- The Galaxy said that this is the second biggest-selling jersey launch (defined as the first 48 hours) of any MLS team over the last two years, including expansion teams (MLS has not released who the no. 1 team is).
- The Galaxy sold over two times as many jerseys in the first 24 hours as they did in the first 30 days for the previous three kit launches.
- The Galaxy sold out at both TeamLA Store and MLSStore.com in the first 60 minutes.
- Overall, this is the most successful jersey launch, by far, the Galaxy have ever had that they have records for.
Additional updates on the Araujo Kit number issue:
- For those who ordered from TeamLA Store — No Araujo kits with the no. 22 were printed by the store. All Araujo kits shipping will have the no. 2.
- If you ordered from MLSStore.com, they’re in the process of fixing those. The Galaxy say that your order should be shipped out as the no. 2, as well.
CARSON, Calif. — Did you miss it? Because if you blinked at around 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning, or if you slept in, or if your job interview ran just a little longer than you expected – as one of our discord members told the rest of the group – you might have been completely run over by the onslaught of buyers jumping at a chance to own something new, that looks like something old, that feels like something that should have always been.
That “thing” was the LA Galaxy’s newest secondary kit that was released on Wednesday morning to rave reviews and a frenzy of buying across multiple websites.
Going on sale just a couple of minutes before 10 A.M. – as some eagle-eyed fans pointed out – and dubbed “The Community Kit” by the team, the ravenous fan-base gobbled up sizes from extra small to extra large in almost no time. In fact, 57 minutes after the kits were officially released, the Team LA Store was down to just Small and X Small sizes.
βWe are excited to unveil the LA Galaxy Community Kit that will serve as our secondary kit for the next two seasons,β Galaxy President Chris Klein said. βWe are the club of champions in the city of champions and this classic jersey design pays tribute to that. We are proud of our history and hope our fans love the progressive spin on this retro-inspired kit.”
And while so much criticism has been lobbed at Adidas and MLS for not breaking the mold or template with league kit designs, the Galaxy and Adidas deserve credit when they get it right. And they got this right. Even if it’s naive to think that knock-offs and low-quality replicas of historical Galaxy kits didn’t show the team and the league the direction the fans were going – basically telegraphing what would be a hit well before a production decision had been made. And if reading the room got this kit off the ground, then they read the room correctly.
The vertical black and Tech-Green stripes separated by a thin bead of gold cut through the boring “white shirt” or plain shirt craze of Adidas’ present lineup (putting the Night-Navy Digitial Glitch design to shame). Sure the three stripes are still there on the shoulders, in that silvery-white that matches it with the home kit, but the design, based heavily on Nike’s original 1997 go at the kit for the Galaxy, has been simplified, intensified, and sharpened.
The plain black shorts with just the white Galaxy logo and the three stripes running vertically down the sides are the perfect setup to the real masterpiece – or at least the item that really sets up the whole design – the socks.
They are Tech-Green for most of their length and sport a simple golden quasar below a trim of black and horizontal stripes. The splash of green is the most of that color anywhere on the entire kit and it stands out while anchoring the entire design in that 1997 staple.
And while the details mean everything, the entire kit can be seen as a detail that has been missing. It’s trimmed with black and white almost like a frame for an expensive piece of artwork. And It matches the Galaxy logo that supports the five stars – one for each MLS Cup the Galaxy hold – and it draws you down to the shorts which lead you to the socks. And on the back of the neck, a new “LA quasar” mark.
“The Community Kit will feature a new LA quasar mark on the back of the neck,” the Galaxy wrote in their press release. “Both the 2021 primary and secondary kits will again display five stars on the jersey to represent the LA Galaxyβs record five MLS Cups won in 2002, 2005, 2011, 2012, and 2014. Both kits will also feature the Herbalife Nutrition logo on the front of the jersey, and the logo of the LA Galaxyβs new jersey sleeve partner, Honey, on the right sleeve. The white jersey unveiled in 2020 will return in 2021.”
The design is a complete flow from top to bottom and has just enough gold to set everything off.
It’s a departure, for sure, from the current colors, white, blue, and Gold. Colors that were adopted because of the arrival of David Beckham in 2007 which led to an entire re-brand for the look of the club. But the original LA Galaxy, the 1996 and 1997 versions of the club, were much more vibrant. The green’s and blacks, the golds and whites; sometimes even the splashes of red, were what the club sported in their debut at the Rose Bowl in 1996. The 2020 home kit was dedicated to the league’s 25th season. And because of that, the sash got silver instead of blue, and the lack of color toned down the usually crisp notes of navy blue and yellow gold. This kit corrects for that oversight.
The only things the Galaxy and the league got wrong was not understanding the initial demand — a mid-March re-stock is in the cards for the Team LA store per the Galaxy but the MLS store is already taking orders that will be shipped in mid-March — and messing up Julian Araujo’s number on his jersey.
The first issue should be calmed by getting more supplies of this new kit. But with dates surely to head toward the end of March, it could be a long wait for fans who definitely want their kits before the start of the season on April 17.
“It’s incredible,” a Galaxy source told CoG after helping to launch one of the most frenzied hours of kit buying in Galaxy history. “The LA Galaxy Team Store sold out of Authentic Jersey’s in 30 minutes.”
But with Araujo, the damage is more subtle. The 19-year-old just recently announced a number switch from 22 to 2 in the past few days. And apparently, that wasn’t enough time to fix the drop-down menus at both the Team LA Store and MLS Store from showing his old number. That led to more than a few Galaxy fans shying away from the popular teenagers kit to make sure they didn’t get the wrong one.
The Galaxy say that kits purchased with the number 22 will go out as the number 2, to make sure that fans get his updated number (this is true of the Team LA Store buys but they’re still checking on the MLS Store purchases as of the publishing of this story). But it was a hiccup that surely led to a lower number of Araujo kits being bought. Something that Araujo should be a little upset about and could end up hurting his pocketbook. Although it’s unknown if he sees any bonuses from kit sales.
But in the end, much went right to get the Galaxy and Galaxy fans to this point. Being able to tie former players and coaching staff into the product launch doesn’t hurt either. But in the end, it takes more than a good design to make a kit something. And the Galaxy have a lot of work to do to live up to the lofty expectations of this release.
“This year’s #GalaxyCommunity kit was the first @LAGalaxy jersey design where I feel like I was fully able to lead the process, from ideation to execution,” Chris Thomas Sr. Director of Digital Media & Marketing for the Galaxy tweeted out. “Needless to say, I am extremely proud of the end product and for my teamβs incredible hard work putting together the strongest jersey launch campaign in @MLS history. Hope @LAGalaxy fans enjoy it!”
So this little nod to the past, while projecting a clean and powerful future, might be exactly what the Galaxy intended it to be – a clean start with intentions to honor the days of old but not rely on it. Maybe that’s too optimistic a view for something that took close to 18-months to develop. Long before Greg Vanney and Dan Calichman would return to the Galaxy.
But with former players, now turned coaches, who knew what it meant to wear the black gold and green of the Galaxy, maybe the club has found a place to reset itself. Maybe they can link those old colors to the blue, white, and gold of 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014? Or maybe this is just what a hopeful fan-base is wanting it to be. Hope.
Great kit, great coach, great team, great results?
