At the beginning of the 2017-2018 NBA season, Nike took over as the primary apparel provider for all 30 franchises within the league. This generated buzz because Nike has earned a reputation for their creative designs and more flashy style. Anyone who watches the Oregon Ducks can see why this reputation has developed.

This year, Nike announced “City Edition” jerseys for every NBA team, with the idea of paying homage to points of pride that each NBA city has. The Detroit Pistons jerseys point to the city’s automotive culture, the Timberwolves’ jerseys are a tribute to music legend Prince, who grew up in Minneapolis.

For the Denver Nuggets, this revolved around the reintroduction of the beloved retro design that the franchise featured from 1981-1993. The design features the Denver skyline highlighted against the Rocky Mountains and all of this is in the classic rainbow pattern featured on the originals. While in the last few years there have been jerseys that featured the skyline and mountains, the rainbow color palette had been noticeably absent from the Nuggets’ jersey designs.

The jerseys harken back to a star-studded Nuggets-era featuring some of the most beloved players in franchise history. Players like Alex English, David Thompson, Kiki VanDeWeghe and Dikembe Mutombo played in these jerseys and led the team to some of their most successful seasons. As a result of this team success during this era, and the association of the jersey with these stars, Nike rolled out the new jerseys and they were wildly popular.

At the Pepsi Center, the home arena of the Nuggets, the jerseys went on sale at 10 am on Friday the 9th. The line to get the popular jersey went all the way to the parking lot with so many fans itching to get their hands on this new take of an old classic. All of the inventory that was on site sold out within the hour. By 11 all of the jerseys had been sold, affirming that these jerseys had been a long time coming.

The Nuggets and Nike did a great job on the “City Edition” jersey because they were able to not only produce a product that helps fans recall some of the glory days of the franchise but they also delivered a product that people wanted and could produce revenues for both of them. While there have been complaints about some of the other jerseys around the league, this was a marketing bullseye. The team is able to introduce a product that means something to the people of Denver and the buy-in from the fans proves that the marketing and idea behind it were well done.