Grid Lake City: RSL's new 'Grid City ' kit is more than a Croatia copycat
The checkered pattern that rose to prominence via the Croatian national team is another nod to the city that Real Salt Lake calls home, known for its unique "grid system" of address coordinates.
Everywhere you go in Salt Lake City, you know exactly where you are.
That’s what Real Salt Lake’s new “Grid City” secondary kit released Thursday morning is meant to symbolize. It’s not a knockoff, but another love letter.
The checkered pattern that rose to prominence via the Croatian national team is another nod to the city that Real Salt Lake calls home, known for its unique "grid system" of addresses and coordinates.
In a similar vein that RSL’s immensely popular “Beehive kit” broke with tradition to create a shirt that symbolized the state of Utah’s multi-colored variety — from the tops of the mountains in the north to the red rocks in the south — and the club’s “Peak Utah” kit encapsulated the state’s mountains as well (or, frankly, better than) any other project before it, the Grid City kit is a nod to Utah’s capital city and its unique heritage.
For the unaware, when Mormon pioneers first entered what is now the Salt Lake Valley and began settling the area that was then outside the United States, one of the group’s first tasks was to set the site of the Salt Lake Temple in the center of their new home.
To this day, every street in the Salt Lake Valley — all the way to the Point of the Mountain that leads into Utah County towards Provo — has a corresponding number, and that number corresponds to its distance from the current temple site, which is officially located at 50 N. West Temple — the numerical center of the city.
For example, the home venue of Real Salt Lake, currently called “America First Field” for the large credit union the sponsors the stadium, is located at 9256 S. State Street. In relative terms, that means the club’s home venue is located roughly 9200 blocks south of Temple Square. Obviously, the math has some slight imperfections. But you get the idea.
The widened checkered squares of the shirt also point to Salt Lake City’s intentionally widened streets, first designed for ease of travel for the early settlers to fit a horse-drawn carriage on both sides — and in most cases, to be able to turn the carriage around without unhitching the horse.
As the club’s official launch video notes, the grid system “is more than just street lights and concrete; it’s the backbone that shaped our system — the place where we dream.”
So Real Salt Lake’s newest kit is more than a simple fashion statement, or Croatia knockoff.
It’s about history and home, two things the club celebrating its 20th season represent for the home crowd.
By the way, the Grid City kit is available to order on the MLS Store right now.