The Sixers' Court was a Sanguine Abomination
The Sixers played their first “in-season tournament” game on their home floor, debuting the red and dark blue court, which looked like this on television:
28 for @DeAnthonyMelton! pic.twitter.com/yzDfIwOlMD
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) November 15, 2023
I watched on three different screens, starting with my phone while the kids had Team Umizoomi on the big TV. I had to stop watching after five minutes because the color scheme was giving me a headache. So we put the kids down, took 600mg Ibuprofen, and then tried on the larger television, which is a 55 inch.
Result?
A little better, but just not a pleasant watch or enjoyable experience. Why? Because the court was too busy. There was too much going on:
- the red extended out of bounds and carried through the length of the floor, into the crowd and bench area
- the blue stripe width extended elbow-to-elbow, so there was a lot of action around that part of the floor where your eyes had to process two block colors right next to each other
- the trophy design inside the key featured two additional colors beyond the red and blue
- the Sixers’ uniforms matched the blue stripe, which made the players blend in a bit
- there was a reflective glare on the blue portion especially, which barely appears on the normal court
Case in point, look at this shot, with the player reflections:
Now compare it to this one:
You can only barely make out a couple of legs above the nail, and the reflections inside the lighter blue shade don’t pop as much. It’s a good neutral/base kind of color with the blue and white doing the heavy lifting.
We need to get an optometrist to explain exactly how the eyes and brain function here, but it just felt like a strain to process everything that was going on at once. Does that make sense? Surely you felt the same way I did. I felt like my eyes had to work harder to keep up with everything plastered onto the floor.
Honest to God, watching this clip 5-6 times in a row felt more comfortable than watching the first clip above:
Made an in-game adjustment bc the Sixers’ court was making Eyes bleed…
Feel like I’m now watching a game in the 50s pic.twitter.com/02vVlrN5Os
— Marc Farzetta (@MarcFarzetta) November 15, 2023
And look, I think we’d agree that trying new things is a good idea. I went into this with an open mind, because different is interesting. We don’t don’t want boring and stale. But sometimes less is more, and in this case, we should dismantle this sanguine abomination and insert it piece by piece into the incinerator.