Rapids Kit Rankings Home Top 10

Time to finish this series up with the top 10 home kits!  I pre-ranked all the kits before starting this series but as I was writing them up I found myself making slight changes.  No part of the list changed more than this 10 though, I made changes all the way up to #3 while writing this.  The top 2 were always locked in though.

#10 - 2016-2017

The first kit with a legitimate jersey sponsor (ciao Ciao!) and a good team to go with it.  Nice and clean but doing nothing with the burgundy means that it can't go much higher than this.  I do like that Transamerica didn't demand a bright red logo on the front to match their company colors.

#9 - 2018 - 2019

Minimal changes form the prior jut but making the sleeves burgundy and all the trim light blue instead of the light blue/white mix makes this one the better of the two

#8 - 2024-2025

The checkered flag design, I like finally giving the burgundy some kind of design but this trends closely to one of those optical illusion images.  The light blue really pops on this one though.  Hard to believe we went to the 'Colorful Colorado' kits from this unfortunately.

#7 - 2001-2002

The true 'Aquaman' kits.  Super tight and green.  Our last green home kit ever, we wouldn't really get Rapids green back until last year's 3rd kit.  Also the final Kappa kit.  Given their skin-tight nature I had to take a pass on these for my personal collection.  This was the point where the Rapids switched from white at home and green on the road to the reverse, something they've kept through all their color combinations since (until, arguably, this season where they're black at home and green on the road).

#6 - 1996

The original.  Its hard to not put this in the top 5 but overall I thought the road kit was better.  The stripes on the shoulders just don't work for me as well as they should.  Still its a classic 90's style kit and that can't be ignored.

#5 2009-2010

I gave this a one spot boost because we won MLS Cup in this kit.  We'll always have the great memories of Casey scoring while seated and Kandji sacrificing his ACL for the MLS Cup winning goal in this shirt.  To say nothing of Drew Moor's last second clearance.  I don't love the collar on it but that's not enough to downgrade it from its importance in team history.  

#4 - 1997-1998

The kits just kept getting better in the early years.  This gave us the first use of the round badge but avoided duplication by moving the wave badge to the center of the chest.  The later 2006 road kit would be inspired by this one but this was the better version of it.  It removed the old gold color from the sleeves that stood out in a bad way to me on the first kit.

#3 - 2022-2023

Almost my top burgundy kit, I really like this one.  The sublimated mountains on this kit are great and the Colorado 'C' as the jock tag is a nice touch.  This is my current burgundy kit for game days and its going to take a lot for the 2028-2029 kit to replace it.

#2 - 2013

This, of course, had to be the top burgundy kit.  Its also the reason we have had 18 home kits but only 17 road kits.  for one season the Rapids wore this kit with the dark bands, when looking closer at the bands you'll see they're made up of a list of names.  Those were the season-ticket holders of the Rapids (the band across the chest just says 'Colorado Rapids' repeated, in case they had managed to sing a jersey sponsor, that way nobody's name would have been covered.  They didn't sign one).  My name is in the lower band across the belly.  The Rapids were at least one of the first, if not the first, clubs in the world to place their ticket holder names on the kit and it was well received.  Hard to downgrade a kit that has your name on it!

#1 - 1999-2000

There was never a doubt this one (and its away partner) were going to end up on the top of my lists.  This was the kit the team used for the first full season I followed them, it was the first kit I bought ( a signed one from a trip to Dallas that still hangs in my office) and its the one I think of when I think of "classic Rapids" like 'Celo, JDV, Agogo, Limpar, and Hahnemann, among others.  More of a throwback to this is what last year's 3rd kit should have been.

So, there it is, all 40 kits ranked.  If I had to choose a combined top 5:

1999-200 Home

1999-2000 Away

2013 Home

2025 Third

2022-2023 Home

Back this weekend with some review of World Cup kits before we transition back into the season next week.