Brisbane Roar have not only released some of the best new kits seen in recent memory, they’ve also finally tapped into something A-League clubs have ignored for years – football culture.
Take a stroll down any main street in an Australian capital city and what do you see?
The answer, if you’re looking closely enough, is football jerseys.
They’re everywhere.
Long gone are the days when a replica football jersey was something you only wore to the game.
These days you’re just as likely to see someone strolling down Queen Street Mall in a Borussia Dortmund jersey as you are to find them being worn on the terraces at Signal Iduna Park.
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Where once it was mildly embarrassing to see some daggy middle-aged bloke rocking a jersey, today they’re a must-have fashion accessory – worn by everyone from Snoop Dogg to Dua Lipa and lifelong San Lorenzo fan, Viggo Mortensen.
So why wouldn’t an A-League club try to tap into the zeitgeist and respond to what football fans actually spend their money on?
Probably because the game’s administrators have spent far too long focusing exclusively on what happens on the pitch – to the detriment of the culture they’re supposed to be in charge of building off it.
That’s where someone like Chad Gibson comes in.
An early face of A-League’s advertising as the inaugural captain of Queensland Roar – back when the club was conceived to represent the entire state – Gibson is these days a creative director who has worked closely with the Roar’s new leadership group to help tell their story.
And he and his creative partner Cecilia Humphrey have banged one in from distance with a jersey design that speaks directly to the club’s history and pays homage to the jersey the Roar first ran out some 20 seasons ago.
Boasting a throwback blue and orange colour scheme and launched with a tagline of “One State. One Club. Twenty Seasons,” Gibson summed up the brief with a simple line.
“To create a kit that was meaningful, had heritage, and inspired this next generation.”
Yet of the three kits launched in late September, it’s not the only one that had jersey collectors across the globe sitting up and taking notice.
Retail outlet Classic Football Shirts has stores in New York, Manchester, and London – not to mention 1.2 million followers on Instagram, plus another million across their other social channels.
When the Roar dropped their third away jersey – a maroon and white check number modelled online by wing-back Antonee Burke-Gilroy – Classic Football Jersey used it as the feature image on their ‘Shirt Release Round-Up’ for the week.
That means millions of fans who collect kits from around the world saw a Queensland-inspired A-League jersey take centre stage where these types of fans actually congregate – online.
And while that may not seem like a big deal for a club still trying to rebuild its fan base after several years in the wilderness, what it does is open up the Roar to new markets and commercial opportunities.
That’s something the Roar’s chief executive Kaz Patafta and chief operating officer Zac Anderson have worked diligently on behind the scenes.
It also helps explain why they’ve brought in Indonesian international Rafael Struick up front.
The 21-year-old doesn’t arrive in the A-League as a finished product, but what he does boast is more than four million Instagram followers and some fanatical support from his homeland.
Lucas Herrington and Ben Halloran pose during Brisbane Roar 2024-25 A-League Season launch with new kits. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images for A-Leagues)
And while the purists will argue online metrics should have nothing to do with player signings, the stark reality is that A-League clubs have done a patchy job of commercialising the off-field side of the game to date.
Which is why Brisbane Roar’s leadership team deserves credit for their off-season moves.
The three new kits are the best in the league – nothing will convince me otherwise – and the club have done something the Australian Professional Leagues could learn from.
They’ve celebrated their own history.
As the late Mike Cockerill used to say to me whenever he called me for one of his long chats on the state of the game, “it’s about time.”