This week, ESPN’s “College Game Day” released its annual Uni Watch: College Football Season-Preview column. ESPN gave a list of which teams have released new uniforms for the 2013 season and what they will look like. The column also touches on certain trends fans do not like. For example, this season the new Adidas jerseys will have a “weird feathered pattern” that some say look like stretch marks. ESPN said fans have made it very clear they do not like these new uniforms.
It’s not just football teams’ uniforms that fall under negative fire from fans and media, as No. 1 women’s world tennis player Caroline Wozniacki proved this week at the U.S. Open.
After being in the news just a few days earlier over her misreported breakup with pro golfer boyfriend Rory McIlroy, tennis fans caused an uproar again over the dress Wozniacki wore in her match against Duan Ying-Ying.
At first glance, the blue multi-hued Stella McCartney-designed dress looked like any other dress at the U.S. Open, with the exception of the ruffled skirt and weird patterns. The dress featured oval cutouts on Wozniacki’s ribs – the point of controversy.
Yes, Wozniacki’s dress was ugly, and there’s no need to have cutouts on a tennis uniform, but is that really what sports fans pay attention to these days? So what if Wozniacki wants to wear a dress that the rest of the world thinks is ugly?
Wozniacki, the No. 8 seed in the tournament, happened to have a challenging match that day and had to rally to win the match after being down 5-2 in the second set, but no one – journalists included – seemed to care about that fact; they were only focused on her outfit choice.
This isn’t the first time Wozniacki’s wardrobe choice has been criticized by national news and fans. Remember her ruffled collared dress at Wimbledon 2011?
Could sports fans be overreacting? Shouldn’t sports fans be more focused on the game and the performance of an athlete, anyway?
But as ESPN’s “College Game Day” points out every year, people really do care about what an athlete wears. Sports are there for our entertainment, right?
