An Orchestration of Color vs. Random Fandom; Spurs, Sabres Celebrate Playoff Returns Their Own Way…

They both returned to the playoffs…one NHL and one NBA…on the same night both with their own organic spin to presentation.

The San Antonio Spurs pulled off the well orchestrated  Fiesta Night, a rainbow of coordinated color for Victor Wembanyama’s first playoff home game, while the Buffalo Sabres drought ending win over the Boston Bruins was reflective of it’s team…gritty, shirtless and loud.

And both were unique to their audience.

First the Spurs, as detailed by Lev Abkas in Sportico (link here).  

The team distributed shirts in its bright 1990s “Fiesta” shades to fans based on what section of the arena they were sitting. The crowd’s apparel matched the court and the team’s City Edition uniforms, creating a cohesive, color-blocking aesthetic that drew near-universal praise on social media. The Spurs are content to wait another two weeks to showcase their Fiesta colors, given that they sat on the idea for years before attempting to pull it off. The Spurs brought back their 90s colors in the 2020-21 season, and the City Edition collection accounted for over 50% of retail revenue that year. The team knew it eventually wanted to wear the Fiesta jerseys in the postseason during Fiesta, an annual April festival held in San Antonio dating back over 100 years, but it never had the opportunity until now. Once this year’s squad appeared playoff-bound several months ago, the organization began planning how many of each color shirt would be needed and which sections would wear which. The setup was an undertaking, requiring around 75 part-time ushers to pitch in. Three game presentation assistants were appointed team leaders—one for each color. After unboxing 20,000 shirts, the rest of the staff paired up in different sections around the area, with one putting the shirts on the seats and the other following behind and straightening them out. The next step was fan buy-in, but that generated organically. “We were just doing random crowd coverage before the game [on the jumbotron, and] people were booing the shots of the other Spurs fans that didn’t have their shirt on,” Snowden said. “We didn’t even really need to do anything on the game presentation side.”

It caught the attention of all watching and following and became a memorable one off.

The Sabres left most of the attention go to the players and let the fans enjoy the night. Yes there were the white…why do teams let fans waive flags of surrender…get rid of white towels…and the banners hung all over the arena designed by those faithful who showed up for the special night. Simple, not overstated, no need for orchestration, and all Buffalo.

Now team presentation is all about copycatting. As the Fiesta night unfolded rest assured other teams in other sports were thinking through their own color takeovers for down the line, complete with the sponsors dollars that go with it. But to pull off a copycat? Lots of perfection needed, and frankly is it unique to the fan base. Good  luck trying to get Knicks fans to coordinate sections with teeshirts…and why would you need it.

Did the Sabres need a sea of blue to make that first game back more special? Nope. The fans brought their own in every color that Buffalo had to offer, and it fit just as well as the color explosion of San Antonio.

Now, yes some best practices need to be shared and expanded upon. Fans tell you what they like. But a color explosion for every team, or even one more team? Not needed. Wemby and the Spurs set a high bar, let’s move on and do what Buffalo did…let fans be fans, no orchestration needed.