A lot of rumors have surrounded the potential debut of new alternate uniforms by the San Francisco 49ers. On Tuesday, the team officially confirmed that the new duds will be throwbacks. The 49ers have been using all-black alternates with red numbers since the 2015 season.
The new versions will debut at the team's State of the Franchise event, which begins at 7 p.m. from the California Theater in San Jose, California. In an interview on 95.7 The Game, 49ers president Al Guido was directly asked if the team plans to debut new alternate uniforms at the event.
"We are," he responded. "It's been the rumor, and I can confirm that we will be rolling out what I would call a throwback/alternate jersey. And people will understand why after we reveal it tomorrow. I certainly believe this will be a hit or like to believe it will be a hit. I can tell you we rolled them out to the team the other day, and the reactions were tremendous from the players.
"We're real fired up about it. I think our fans are going to love it. I don't want to go too much further on any other specifics because you might be able to guess what they are, but let's just say I think our fans are going to really appreciate the throwback nature of the jersey."
For the media and fans watching at home, new alternate uniforms may be a welcome change. The current alternates were often criticized due to the red-on-black color scheme, which made it challenging to identify player numbers and names quickly.
There was speculation last week that the 49ers new alternate uniforms might resemble the versions the team wore for most of the 1994 season. San Francisco won the Super Bowl at the end of that season. Those uniforms were part of the league's 75th anniversary and were a throwback themselves to the jerseys worn by the team during the 1955 season.
We recently polled fans which uniform they would prefer as alternates, the all-black versions or something similar to those worn in 1994 and 1955. Fans overwhelmingly chose the latter.