Apparent Leak of Royals’ New City Connect Jersey Quickly Going Viral

Kansas City Royals fans were supposed to be kept in waiting until next month to find out what their team’s new City Connect uniforms would look like.

As usual, though, the internet had other plans.

A leaked image that appears to show a rack of the Royals’ redesigned City Connect jerseys surfaced on X/formerly Twitter on Tuesday, and there seems to be little doubt that the leak shows what the real thing will look like when it’s properly unveiled.

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Leaked image appears to show Royals’ new City Connects

Jomboy Media’s “Talkin’ Baseball” account pushed an image out to its 535,000 followers late on Tuesday morning, which was originally shared by user @ThaChadwick. The same image, it turns out, had cropped up on Reddit and some Royals fan Instagram pages a few days prior.

The jerseys, if they are real, appear to be keeping the same alternate “R” logo with a crown that the Royals’ design team created for the original City Connects, which debuted during the 2022 season. At the time, however, that logo was placed on the sleeve, with a stylized “KC” on the chest.

The most significant change, however, appears to be the inclusion of purple, which has never been worn in a Royals uniform before. A purple-into-blue gradient stripe flows from the top of the shoulders to the hem of the sleeves, and that same gradient occupies the “R” on the chest.

The most obvious visual cue that the leak is likely legitimate appears on the inside of the collar, where the phrase “Hey Hey Hey Hey” appears with a crown on either side. The Royals had the same catchphrase on their 2022 release, and just about every team has some sort of similar slogan in the same place on their current City Connect design.

While we’ll have to wait for the Royals to unveil their designs in an official capacity before their scheduled on-field debut in April, it’s probably safe for fans to start forming an opinion on the switch-up now that an internet consensus of legitimacy has formed.