Hornets Rainbow LGBT Pride Team Logo Shirt

Colors That Change What People Notice First

Walk around Spectrum Center on a Pride Night and you’ll see plenty of fans repping the Hornets, but the ones wearing wings striped in rainbow tend to get a second glance before anyone reads a single word. That’s basically the idea behind the Hornets Rainbow LGBT Pride Team Logo Shirt, which takes the buzzing bee mascot Charlotte basketball fans already know and repaints it in Pride colors, built for the days when cheering on the team and showing support for the LGBT community happen in the same outfit.

A Familiar Mascot, Redrawn

The wings stretch out wide and are colored in horizontal bands, red at the tips fading through orange, yellow, green, blue, and down into purple near the antennae, so the shape reads as a rainbow before it reads as a bee. The angular linework from the original Hornets mark stays sharp though, wings pointed like blades instead of rounded cartoon shapes, and that’s on purpose. We at Teebete kept the stinger and antenna details crisp so longtime fans clock it as Hornets gear first, Pride design second, rather than the other way around.

Why It Doesn’t Sit Next to Standard Hornets Merch

Most Hornets apparel sticks to teal, purple, and white, so a shirt built entirely around the Pride spectrum stands apart from a typical jersey or tee on a store rack. It’s a Pride-themed alternative to standard Charlotte basketball gear rather than a variation on it, which makes it useful for people who want to show up to a game supporting both the team and the LGBT community without picking one over the other. Some fans wear it specifically because the usual team colors don’t leave much room for that second message.

Game Days, Pride Month, and Everything Around Them

June brings Pride Night at plenty of NBA arenas, and pieces like this tend to come out for those specific games, plus any tailgate or meetup where Hornets fans gather during Pride month. It also works as a gift for a Hornets fan who’s part of or supportive of the LGBT community, since it doesn’t require explaining the design, the wings do that on their own. For anyone who follows the Queen City’s team closely enough to have opinions about the mascot’s usual color scheme, this is a shirt made for Pride games that still looks like something from the same fanbase, not a separate novelty item.

Anyone already planning what to wear to the next Pride Night at Spectrum Center now has one option sitting in the closet, wings and all, ready before the rest of the outfit is.