CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In recent years, the Cavaliers have used their City Edition uniforms to spotlight the best Cleveland has to offer, from Playhouse Square and the Cleveland Metroparks to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Lake Erie, and the pride and community spirit of The Land. With their latest threads, revealed Thursday and for sale now online, the team honors one of the city’s cultural treasures: the Cleveland Museum of Art, bringing a new level of artistry to the court.
“This year’s Nike NBA City Edition jersey honors the rich culture of visual arts in Cleveland,” said Chris Kaiser, chief marketing officer for the Cleveland Cavaliers, in a press release. “It was designed to take fans back to where most of them first encountered art – through coloring books and paint-by-numbers – while connecting them to a beloved Cleveland institution.”
The uniform features a two-tone blue design: the powder blue represents the shade used in the museum’s branding while the darker royal blue represents the color the Cavs wore in the mid-1990s. Across the chest, “The Land” is displayed in a striped font inspired by the architecture of the museum’s west wing and its logo.
“(This partnership) felt like such a natural fit as the two organizations, while very different in their missions, strive in a similar way to connect people and bring our community together and celebrate the great culture of Cleveland,” said Todd Mesek, CMA’s chief marketing officer, at the uniform’s official unveiling at the museum.
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The culmination of a nearly three-year design process, the uniform is intended to be an interactive art piece, with distinctive side panels on the jerseys and shorts. These panels display Cleveland-inspired motifs and symbols (for example, “216,” “CLE” and “Cavs”), resembling pages from a coloring book and inviting fans to personalize their jerseys by coloring in the designs. The jock tag at the bottom of the jersey says, “Designed by.”
“It’s left blank because we view everyone can be an artist and want to remind them that whatever they’re doing on a day-to-day basis, they can create a piece of art, and they can make this jersey their own,” Kaiser said.
As part of the launch, the Cavaliers and the Cleveland Museum of Art demonstrated their commitment to art and arts education, announcing a $10,000 donation to the Rainey Institute, a nonprofit that has offered performing arts and visual arts education programming for Greater Cleveland’s youth and families since 1904.
“At Rainey, we believe really deeply that the arts change lives because they empower young people to be more creative and build the confidence they need,” said Brandon Lipford, the Rainey Institute’s director of arts education. “This investment is going to help us to continue to provide and make sure that high-quality arts education is accessible to our young people here in Cleveland.”
The collaboration also extends to the museum’s upcoming MIX party on Dec. 6. Themed “Art of the Game,” the 21-and-over nighttime event will showcase music from the team’s DJ, DJ Steph Floss, performances by the Cavaliers Dance and Scream Teams and a pop-up store with cobranded merchandise.
The team will wear the new kits six times this season, beginning with the Nov. 17 matchup against the Charlotte Hornets. Each of those games will be played on a special City Edition court at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse designed with the same torn-away coloring book pattern as the jerseys.
Fans can shop the City Edition collection at cavs.com/city.