Clippers unveil new logo, uniform design as team works to carve out new identity

From the day he bought the team, Steve Ballmer has tried to do something previous ownership did not — carve out a separate Los Angeles identity for the Clippers.

He took over a team in the shadow of the biggest brand in the sport and worked to find his franchise’s own patches of sunlight. In the community, that has been grass-roots outreach and targeted spending of money on things youth interact with. That identity has taken place on the court with four stars who all grew up playing in the greater Los Angeles area and next season will feature what the team has most needed for decades — its own arena. A true home.

To pair with that move, the Clippers are unveiling a rebrand — a new logo, new look, and tweaks to the color scheme to lean into the Navy Blue more. The Clippers are leaning into a classic script with the lettering on the jerseys. The new logo actually has a ship in it.

That new logo will be the center of the team’s court at the Intuit Dome. Leaning onto the nautical theme, on the jerseys, under the arms, will be the nautical flags that spell out LAC.

The new look is sharp, this is a positive step for the Clippers. When combined with the move to a state-of-the-art new arena, it feels like a sea change.

Some will ask why not change the name? After all, a Clipper is a sailing ship, a name that fit well with the sailing and Navy city of San Diego, the Clippers’ former home (but can be seen in some coastal parts of Los Angeles, too). There’s no change because the fans didn’t want it — in focus groups there was vehement opposition to it, Balmer himself told Zach Lowe at ESPN.

“The focus groups are advisory, not definitive,” Ballmer told ESPN. “But I still listen to them, and I have heard, partially to my surprise, that there is no interest in a name change. I had thought about [the name] years ago, before I got the team, but we heard similar reactions back then.”

Not only does this look good, it’s another step in the right direction for the Clippers — the kind of right steps they have been making since Ballmer bought the team. For example, the team has refurbished basketball courts all over the city in parks, and done it with the Clippers logo involved. The branding is prominent and effective. Los Angeles is always going to be a Lakers’ town, they are the cultural institution fathers pass down to their kids. But Los Angeles is big enough to have a second team that can thrive and Ballmer has the recipe to make that work (by the Clippers’ calculations they have doubled their fan base since Ballmer bought the team, through the end of the Blake Griffin/Chris Paul era and into this Kawhi Leonard/Paul George era).

The Clippers are going to have the recently-extended Leonard on the roster next season to open the new building while wearing the new uniforms, with most likely Paul George (he said “the goal” is for him to reach an extension with the Clippers, too) and James Harden (free agent this summer but the Clippers have his Bird rights) next to him. There’s a playoffs between now and then, one where the Clippers are a real threat, but next season things will look different for the Clippers. Literally.