Vibes are back: A festive kit release celebration, and a bit of good news to go with it

Austin FC president Andy Loughnane was in a jovial mood on Thursday night, and for good reason.

The franchise he's tasked with making a financial success just received an $865 million valuation according to Sportico, good for sixth in MLS, besting big-market teams like Seattle Sounders FC and Toronto FC (not to mention a smaller-market team of import to him, his former Columbus Crew).

The club's third home jersey, dubbed the Heartbeat Kit, comes out of the 2025 pack as one of the better-looking kits in the league (though Seattle, Portland, and Real Salt Lake are also getting rave reviews).

And the Thursday night party to celebrate it, though not last year's massive collaboration with Yeti that brought the spirit (and some of the musicians) from Armadillo World Headquarters to ACL Live, was a study in low-key good vibes with many of the supporters who love the club most insistently.

Six players came out to model the new kits, including new arrivals Nicolás Dubersarsky and Besard Šabović, and (probable captain) Ilie Sánchez performed the heartbeat ritual on the stage.

Head coach Nico Estévez (who attended with his wife, and shook hands with the Verde Van workers outside the venue before making his way into the club) also came to the stage to give a short but solid pep rally speech.

Loughnane said that staging the event at the exact same club (though made somewhat different over time) where the fledgling Austin FC announced its official name and unveiled its logo in 2018 – to a town ready to embrace it and a league with lots of fans still giving it serious side-eye – wasn't an intentional selection to invoke the club's origins.

But he did grant, "For a few of us, this is a very special place. There are a lot of memories inside of this building."

Highlights from the press event

About a dozen of us went outside where we could hear, if not stay warm, to ask Loughnane about the kit and where it fits in the overall woven tapestry of Austin FC kits.

On the new green-on-green approach, which I characterized as a 'departure' from past home kits:

"We wanted to do something that was a little bit different, as you said, a little bit of a departure, but also remain true to the core brand principles. So we've talked about this; we've signaled that we want to reinforce our brand through Verde and through vertical stripes. And I'd like to think that we've done that with this kit. But yeah, being vibrant, being verde is something that's very important to us. And again, vertical stripes is something that's important.

On holding a kit release party:

This has been something that we want to — a tradition that we want to embrace. I think for us again, this is our way of waking everybody up from the offseason and having a party that feels very Austin. This is part of what should be an annual tradition.

On it being called the Heartbeat Kit:

It's a tribute to our supporters who are the heartbeat of our club. It's an homage to a ritual, the heartbeat ritual, which is the catalyst for the game, the starting drum beats ... the signal to the crowd that we're going to begin our match. It's kind of a call to arms when the "Listos! Verde!" chant begins. It's an obvious reference to our commitment to verde as a very important element of our club, with clear references to green inside of this jersey.

It also has to be the first time that there's ever been an anatomically correct heart on any jersey of any sport of any kind in the world. There is an anatomically correct heart that is on our jock tag, which is kind of the lower left side on the jersey.

(It's, of course, the same heart that's on the drum that gets utilized at the center capo stand just before the start of each home match.)

On the new and absurd kit leaks and how to make those work to your marketing advantage, and yes, this was also my question:

Phil, that is quite an inside baseball question. The short answer is that we do not want there to be leaks, and they do come to life in ways that I would never imagine. There's probably something funny and fun and interesting about that. Jersey culture in our sport is such an important part of everything that comes to life, and so to me, it's become part of soccer culture to have the jersey inadvertently linked leak through ways that I never thought possible before, but it is not by design, to be very clear.

On plans for the next two years' worth of kits:

We want to establish verde; we want to establish vertical stripes. I think you'll see those elements continue throughout our jersey exploration. Every other year we have something that's usually dark, something that's been light every other year, and that sort of influences the design. I think we will explore new shades of green consistently. I think that's something that people can expect, and I think I'll leave it there.

Right now we're designing the 2027 jersey, and I'm really excited about the '26 kit. I'm really excited about the '27 kit. And I love this process. It does take two years; it's a wild cycle. So you would consider this one dark. This is absolutely a dark-colored jersey. So you're looking to cycle the other direction for the next one. We will have to next year, we'll replace the Dillo kit, right? So you replace it with a light color kit.

That doesn't mean [stripes have] to be on every single jersey. But if we have a jersey set where there are two jerseys in any given set, I wouldn't be surprised if there are going to be stripes in some way shape or form, and I definitely will not be surprised if there's green in at least one of those jerseys.

(My early predictions, based on those context clues: White with green pinstripes for '26, and something predominantly black with green accents for '27. Bookmark this to see if I'm Kitstrodamus later.)

On the possibility of a third kit:

There's always hope.

"But is there anything beyond hope at this point?" I asked.

There's hope!

The bit of good news

I saw sporting director Rodolfo Borrell, we shook hands and exchanged pleasantries, I congratulated him on his offseason work (as it's been impressive, as you've been reading here), and asked him, "When's Uzuni coming?" referring to designated player Myrto Uzuni, who has been in Spain and what appears to be (if the We Are Austin TV guys are reading social media right) Albania, awaiting a visa.

I expected careful equivocation, but instead, I got: "He's coming Saturday."

What I have to keep reminding myself about Borrell: He'll be evasive while a deal is being worked, but if paperwork is done, and he's in the right mood (especially if his answer begs the question, "How did you do this great thing?"), he'll just say it.

It's hard to say what Uzuni's arrival a week before the opener means in the Estévez Era. We know, in the Josh Wolff Era, there would likely be several weeks of integration and learning the system for a new player, no matter how talented, and in a few unfortunate cases (remember the woeful tale of Aleksandar Radovanović on a bench when he should have been playing?), with that player sitting out a little longer than he should have.

Could we see a 15-minute cameo from Austin's newest designated player at the home opener a week from Saturday? Depending on what fitness regimen he's been keeping up between clubs, that's conceivable, and based on the season preview I did on SKC for American Soccer Analysis, I feel like that could be with the scoreline 3-1 or 4-1 for the home team. (We'll get into this more next week, but read the preview now and marvel at the goalkeeping numbers. They're as ugly as the current home/away kit pairing is beautiful.)

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