Rope hats are the new trend in the NFL

Every sport has its trend. For example, in soccer, we wondered if the inserts in the shorts would represent the trend for the 2024/25 season. Going back in time, during the 2010/11 Premier League season, we witnessed the spread of neck warmers. Carlos Tevez and the Manchester City players started a trend so broad and widespread that the IFAB was eventually forced to ban them to stop their proliferation. Switching sports, the story remains the same. In the United States, on and off the field, there is no league cooler than the WNBA at the moment. Tunnel fits have become fashion shows, dominating the Instagram and TikTok profiles of the players. Now, people are wondering about the spread and usefulness of single sleeves, a trend in which A'ja Wilson is the leading figure. Every sport has its trends. In tennis, due to sponsorship deals, it's watches: the first item every player puts on before a post-match interview. If we think back to the Olympics, the first things that come to mind are the cyberpunk jackets of shooters, the winter coats used by swimmers, or the colorful nails of athletes.

Now, a new trend must be added to this list. It comes from the NFL and involves rope hats, known as "rope hats." The Wall Street Journal wrote about the rise of this trend, starting with a little-known backstory: before every season, all the head coaches participate in a kind of fashion show where the league presents them with the latest elements approved by the NFL and thus wearable on the sidelines. This meeting is very important for coaches because it is during this phase that they choose the look that will be immortalized by the cameras for the entire season. «Many more coaches than we anticipated have embraced the rope hats», said Ryan Samuelson, vice president of consumer products for the NFL. As a result, a group of coaches led by Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs started wearing rope hats on the field, and this trend was quickly picked up by players, from Josh Allen to Micah Parsons.

Looking at the bigger picture, the spread of rope hats is the natural evolution of the rise of trucker caps, the trucker hats characterized by a puffy front often decorated with a slogan or logo and a mesh back. A popular item in the early 2000s, and since these are the years of Y2K, the return of a style linked to the early millennium, it was inevitable that hats would soon make a comeback. First came bucket hats, then it was time for baseball caps, which even made it onto the red carpet at the Met Gala or during the U.S. presidential elections with Donald Trump's iconic red hat. Now, trucker caps are ruling the scene. A trend also fueled by the lines created by NewEra, not coincidentally the company behind the spread of rope hats in the NFL. It's the charm of nostalgia, a charm that is hard to resist and finds its biggest market among athletes and sports fans, who are nostalgic by nature.