The Utah Jazz rebrand launch is expected to happen Friday. Here’s what we know

The Utah Jazz’s long-awaited rebrand launch will take place on Friday, with the expectation that it will occur at 11 a.m. MDT.

Here’s a rundown of what to expect.

The background on the rebrand

Last September as the Jazz were beginning preparations for the 2021-22 season, photos surfaced on Twitter which showed that the team’s practice facility in Salt Lake City had a new look — photos that owner Ryan Smith acknowledged.

Gone were the Jazz’s blue, green and gold colors, and in their place was black and white.

That change fell in line with black and white team merchandise Smith had been seen wearing and some changes that had been made to player entrance areas at Vivint Arena.

A short time later, the “J Note” structure outside Vivint Arena was changed from being blue, green and yellow to black, the signage on the arena was made black and the team’s website and social media accounts started using black, white and yellow more frequently.

As all of those changes were happening, Smith and part-owner Dwyane Wade appeared at the Silicon Slopes Summit event in Utah and Smith was asked about the rebrand rumors.

Smith, who bought the Jazz in October 2020, confirmed that a rebrand was in the works and that black and white would be included, but more colors would also be part of it.

Fast forward to February of this year, and potential jersey concepts leaked — a white and yellow one, a yellow and black one, and a black and yellow one.

As time has gone on, noise has grown louder that those three jerseys are indeed part of the rebrand.

Is purple coming back?

Things seemed to be pretty settled in February that black, white and yellow would be the Jazz’s main colors moving forward, and it largely became a question of when during this offseason the team would officially unveil things.

A notable curveball came during the Jazz’s playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks in late April, however.

The Twitter account Jazz Uniform Tracker observed that Smith “has definitely been wearing more and more purple lately,” and Smith acknowledged that purple would be part of the rebrand, writing that “Purple is who we are… It’s here to stay.”

Smith also retweeted a tweet from Deseret News beat writer Sarah Todd which indicated that black, white, yellow and purple are all part of the rebrand.

The latest

Things again were quiet on the rebrand front for a few weeks as major questions about the future of the Jazz franchise took center stage when the season ended, but conversation began in early June that the rebrand would be formally unveiled soon.

Then on Sunday, the Jazz posted a tweet indicating that the unveil would happen on Friday and that guard Jordan Clarkson got a sneak peek at the new look.

Then, on Thursday, photos began to surface on Twitter showing that the “J Note” is being changed from black to purple with the mountain logo that was featured on the team’s primary jerseys from 1996-2004 and was a secondary jersey in the 2019-20 season.

Additionally, New Era Cap announced the 2022 NBA draft hats, and the Twitter account JazzNation observed that no Jazz hat was listed on the company’s website.

That tweet got a reply from the company, which said to “Check back tomorrow.”

Also Thursday at 11 a.m., the Jazz again tweeted the “sneak peek” video of Clarkson that they had shared on Sunday and captioned it “24 hours” with an hourglass emoji.