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If nostalgia longed only for the good old days, there would be far fewer football fans.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers began their existence in 1976 clad in orange-and-white uniforms with a swashbuckling, dagger-chomping pirate on their helmets. Their roughly two decades in those uniforms began with an 0-14 record and ended with a 100-223-1 record and just one playoff win after the team retired them in 1996.
But in this century, the Buccaneers are two-time Super Bowl champions. That newfound fortune yielded a more sentimental view of the old orange-and-white. When the team announced the return of the Creamsicle color scheme this summer in a video narrated by Hall of Famer Derrick Brooks and featuring Buccaneers legends Mike Alstott and Ronde Barber, demand for throwback uniforms increased from a small percentage of team merchandise sales to “significant interest” among both longtime followers and younger fans.
“When you’re talking about a throwback jersey, it’s very easy to just play some old highlights, and then walk out the jersey and call it a day,” said James Ruth, CMO of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Instead, the team used Brooks, who won the Super Bowl in 2003 in the new brand, but was drafted and played in the Creamsicle era. “Using [him] as part of a narrative that then connected to the current day was super important for us.”
That multigenerational enthusiasm brought more brands in for Creamsicle Day on Oct. 15—using retro billboards and products to turn Raymond James Stadium into an updated version of the Buccaneers’ old “Big Sombrero” home at Tampa Stadium. Unilever’s Good Humor distributed thousands of Creamsicle ice cream bars outside the stadium.
Ford had players drive to the game in ‘70s and ‘80s Broncos and Mustangs. Coppertail Brewing canned a Legacy Lager with Buc-O-Bruce on the label.
