Footy Headlines May Have Leaked Sporting KC’s 2025 Kit

While the 2024-25 Major League Soccer offseason moves on, it’s been pretty quiet on the Sporting Kansas City front. There have been just two signings, promising Homegrowns Ian James and Jack Kortkamp. The schedule came out and a bit of preseason. But the team is lacking big news.

Footy Headlines may have provided a chunk of news on Christmas Eve. They appear to have leaked the 2025 Sporting KC primary kit (more photos in their story).

🇺🇸🩵💙 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆: Kansas City 2025 Home Kit Leaked – State Line x Hoops Design: https://t.co/bZrnoMASwl

— Footy Headlines (@Footy_Headlines) December 24, 2024

It appears to be a merging of the “hoops” concept that has been Sporting KC’s primary kit since 2021 with an old staple, the “State Line” kit. The hoops are obvious (we know hoops go all the way around, but that’s what they call it), but the State Line portion is more subtle. What from a distance looks almost like a blurry ‘hoop’ is actually the Kansas and Missouri state line indention repeating over and over.

Outside of the traditional Sporting Blue we are used to seeing and the Indigo in the hoops, but white reappears on a primary kit for the first time since the stripes on the 2017-18 primary.

Initial Thoughts

Kit leaks seem to be the most unflattering possible pictures of a jersey. I personally love the hoops being the primary brand for the last few years, though I know that’s controversial to some. In these unflattering pictures, the white feels a bit out of place to me. Indigo on the shoulders and sides feels like it would be more in line with the SKC look. However, it’s always possible for competitive reasons there can’t be too much indigo in their “light” jersey. And it’s possible it’s template related problems with working with Adidas.

The use of the State Line feels like a good idea, but at a distance it seems it will be lost. In the hours since the leak, fans are mixed in their reactions. From some anger to harkening back to the 2019 “roadkill” kits as they were dubbed when that season went off the rails. That 2019 primary did look like a tire track, and this is definitely not that, but I see why the comparison would be made. Another, non-roadkill nickname popped up on Blue Sky as “The Comb.”

There have also been more positive outlooks.

For the team’s part, at least whoever is running the social media account is having fun with it.

Hey, it's Christmas Eve. No peeking!

— Sporting Kansas City (@SportingKC) December 24, 2024

For my part, I’m in “wait and see,” mode. I generally like the hoops. I love the Sporting Blue and Indigo combination. I’m iffy on the white. But let’s see it in person with proper lighting. On the players, it’ll certainly look better than it will on a non-athlete or lying flat like this.