Sports

New Era pulls Braves, MLB local market caps mocked on social media

New Era caps Braves New Era says it pulled a lampooned line of Major League Baseball hats from its website Tuesday and is apologizing for design inaccuracies on the caps meant to pay homage to communities with big league clubs. (NewEra.com)

You can never underestimate the power of social media, especially when it’s comes to sports fans ridiculing a brand’s ideas. That is exactly what happened Tuesday to one of Major League Baseball’s apparel partners.

New Era released its new line of “Local Market” baseball caps with items that were supposed to pay homage to each MLB team’s city.

Instead of praising the designs, baseball fans called them out for being unoriginal, uninspired and tacky -- and it made New Era pulled them off the website later that day.

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New Era spokesman Mark Maidment said in a statement to The Associated Press on Wednesday that the “Local Market” collection was launched in November of 2020, but the company was only made aware of issues with the designs when social media users began mocking them.

The caps are no longer available on the company’s website, but a few cached images of them remain available.

Atlanta Braves cap featured nine area codes around the metro area and 1995 World Series patch on the front right side of the hat.

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The front left side featured a peach and a flying saucer with ATL on top in reference to OutKast’s “ATLiens” although it also looks like the Polaris restaurant design.

On the back, there is a Georgia state logo with 1966 for the Braves move to the city and a phoenix for the city’s resurgence after the Sherman burning.

Most of social media mocked the designs for not being original and tacky. Some users compared it to elementary art school projects while others called out inaccuracies.

Both New York teams had hats with pizza slices, the Houston Astros had cowboy hat and steak icons and some of Kansas City Royals’ area codes weren’t actually in Missouri.

New Era said the caps were only meant for retail use and not for players to wear during games.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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