Cardinals Red

Before the 2023 season the Cardinals subtly, and very quietly, changed their Red and Blue colors. For many years Cardinal Red had been represented by Pantone 200 and Cardinal Navy had been represented as Pantone 289. At some point in 2022 the Cardinals noticed there were discrepancies between what we see in Pantone books, what we see on computer screens, what we see in other print and display media, and most importantly, what we see on the fabric on the uniform itself. In order to better match what the team wore, new CMYK codes were chosen in favor of Pantone swatches.
This change was made silently. There were no announcements from the team, and I have not seen any official articles or reports made on the change. We noticed it appear in the Style Guides, so there must have been some internal discussions between the Cardinals’ front office and MLB… and presumably Nike as well. It’s slightly curious that there was no announcement for this, but maybe the rationale was that this was not a big enough change that the fan base would notice or care.
Personally I don’t think this can, or will, have any negative impact amongst the fans, because there’s probably a very small percentage of physical media out there that truly matches the official Pantone 200. So yes, most people probably don’t notice or care, and as long as you’re wearing red, you’re good to go. But here on this website, we like to be official and authentic. So what do we think
I like the new swatches, mainly the red swatch, because I’ve always thought Pantone 200 was very pink/magenta. But PMS 200 became familiar, I got used to it, and it worked just fine. The new CMYK swatch I think better represents Cardinal Red. It’s richer in saturation and has less pink hue. The new Cardinal Navy CMYK swatch also appears with more color saturation than PMS 289, so I like that one better also.
Does this mean that these CMYK codes will fully replace the Pantone swatches? I’m not sure. I tried to think of all the things I like and don’t like about making a change like this.
What I like, this change doesn’t really affect or alter the brand, and it shouldn’t be a change that will cause a riot amongst the fans. We’re still a red team, we still wear red, and again the new red just looks good, and better than Pantone 200 in my opinion.
What I don’t like, the ease of calling out the Cardinals official colors might be over. We used to be able to say Red is PMS 200 and Blue is PMS 289. But with this change we might have to start saying, Cardinals Red is custom CMYK swatch 5 Cyan, 100 Magenta, 100 Yellow, and 20 Black. And while that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, I think how good it looks outweighs the ease of calling out Pantone swatches.
What say you? Take a look at the image below, (click to expand), and compare the colors. Tell us what you think.