Sweating the uniform colors and success in sport connection: Time to put the effect to rest?

Abstract

Research linking superior athletic performance to uniform colors pervades psychological research for more than a decade now. The current archival research explored the performance of American collegiate basketball teams during the national annual tournament in a period spanning seven seasons (2012–18). Previous attempts to explore the effect were fraught with confounding variables (e.g., the home-field-advantage, relative endowments of resources). We failed to detect an effect and the results remained null when several colors were tested. Based on the findings it is reasonable to conclude that uniform colors do not exert substantial influence over winning in relatively long-duration low aggression team sports. Future research should take into account a targeted sport taxonomy in assessing whether the effect exists in other types of competitions.