With its 30th birthday looming, the Phoenix Mercury pondered major changes. The original WNBA franchise, one of four still in existence, announced those on Monday with the team’s first-ever rebrand that includes new logos and wordmarks.
It is the last of the four original franchises still in existence to adapt a fresh identity ahead of the WNBA’s 30th season in 2026. It was one of three teams yet to have updated its look in the last decade as interest in the WNBA reaches new heights.
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The primary logo features a singular “M,” rather than its full name, on a purple and orange crescent shape. The global logo features a more modern take on the planet featured in its previous logo. For the first time, the team added a secondary logo, outlined as the state of Arizona with basketball lines and its “Merc” nickname.
“It was a matter of us wanting to modernize what we think is a legacy brand,” Mercury president Vince Kozar told Yahoo Sports on a phone call last week.
Diana Taurasi and Penny Taylor, the legends who helped create the three-time WNBA championship brand, viewed the logo before its public reveal. It was important to Kozar, who began with the Mercury as an intern in 2004, to pay due respect to those who helped create the moment. In particular, Taurasi.
“A lot of teams have faces of the franchise,” Kozar told Yahoo Sports, repeating a stance he made during Taurasi’s 2024 retirement season. “Our face of the franchise wore the uniform for 20 of our 28 years. This isn’t someone who wore it for 15 of 60 years. She really is a piece of this and we really built this with her.”
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The refresh originally discussed for the 25th anniversary lands at a transitional moment for one of the league’s three original franchises still in its inaugural city. (The Utah Starzz moved initially to San Antonio and are now in Las Vegas.) Phoenix played its first season of the post-Taurasi and Brittney Griner era in 2025, reaching the WNBA Finals with only two returners amid booming interest league-wide.
The franchise isn’t far into a new ownership era after Mat Ishbia purchased the Mercury and the NBA’s Sun in 2023. And the entire league is in new territory as viewership, attendance, merchandise sales and cultural intersection explode.
“When you combine all of those things, we really thought it was time,” Kozar said. “And then part of it was just to answer some really sort of boring logistical design questions for ourselves.”
The old logo, with its 2011 color palette change, still lacked versatility and the team’s predominant purple color. The imbalance of the planet on one side and the angled font — which people compared to the Pizza Planet sign from “Toy Story” — created difficulties for use on merchandise. That has become more critical with expanded merchandise offerings, crossover partnerships and a push for modern design from expansion teams as well as existing league members.
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“It was important to us to really modernize a look that feels like us,” Kozar said. “For both the new fans who are used to and crave really modern, cool-looking merchandise and gravitate toward really modern, cool-looking brands. But also, honor the fans and the recognizability of the mark that we’ve had for almost 30 years.”
The New York Liberty, an original franchise, introduced a new identity in 2020 after Joe and Clara Wu Tsai purchased the team from New York Knicks team owner James Dolan. The seafoam-forward look for Brooklyn’s team moved away from the orange and blue associated with Manhattan’s Knicks. The Los Angeles Sparks, the third original franchise still in its home city, introduced the first logo iteration in its history for their 25th anniversary in 2021.
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The Washington Mystics are the only team remaining from the 1990s that has not yet changed its logo; it upgraded its color palette in 2011. The Fever have also kept their logo since 2000, and the Dallas Wings have held theirs since 2016.
The Mercury will continue their branding reveal this week with new uniforms on Tuesday and a celebratory drone show over Central Phoenix on Friday, as well as additional integrations and announcements. Collective bargaining negotiations will also continue this week between the league and its players union ahead of a Nov. 30 deadline.
“What we are excited about is this is about our team and our brand and our fans and where this is going,” Kozar said. “Whatever happens [with the CBA], we’re going to play games and this is actually the perfect time [to announce]. Obviously, we want everything to get solved … It’s a great alternative to being dark in kind of the dog days of winter of the WNBA offseason, as it were.”
