The Best MLS Kits of All Time

Picking the best MLS kits of all time means arguing about three decades of North American shirt design, from 1996 jerseys that looked like they lost a fight with a paint factory to the confident kits clubs wear today. This is our shop-floor ranking of the best MLS kits ever made, plus advice on what to check before buying one.

Where the best MLS kits come from: a 1990s brand war

Major League Soccer kicked off in 1996 with ten clubs and four kit makers, and you can see that competition in the shirts. adidas outfitted three clubs that first season — Columbus Crew, D.C. United and the Kansas City Wiz — while Nike took the LA Galaxy, NY/NJ MetroStars, Tampa Bay Mutiny, Dallas Burn and San Jose Clash. Reebok dressed the New England Revolution and Puma handled the Colorado Rapids.

By 2006 adidas had become the league-wide supplier and has outfitted every club since, extending that deal in 2023 through the 2030 season for a reported 830 million US dollars. One supplier means a more consistent fit, but the wildest designs in league history all come from the brand-war years. If you like that era, our retro football jerseys collection is the place to start.

Kansas City Wiz 1996: the loudest shirt in the league

No conversation about the best MLS kits starts anywhere else. The Wiz — a name the club carried for one season before becoming the Wizards in 1997 and Sporting Kansas City in 2011 — wore an adidas shirt covered in wavy multi-coloured lines, like a 1990s paper cup pattern. It should not work. It absolutely does, and Football Kit Archive voters still rank it among the three highest-rated shirts of that first season.

Sporting Kansas City know what they have: the club brought those wavy lines back on a third shirt in 2024, nearly thirty years on.

D.C. United 1996: black, simple and first to lift the trophy

While half the league went graphic-crazy, D.C. United wore plain black adidas and won everything. United took the inaugural MLS Cup in 1996 against the LA Galaxy and added the US Open Cup the same year, and the shirt's restraint is why it has aged better than almost anything else from that season.

Later versions carried two stars above the crest, and that template remains the closest thing MLS has to a classic European look. If understated is your taste, browse our classic jerseys range for the same thinking applied to European sides.

Chicago Fire 1998: Boca Juniors with a Midwest accent

The Fire's first kit is a lovely bit of borrowing. Nike adapted a template close to Boca Juniors' banded shirt, added a stripe across the sleeves, and handed it to an expansion side that won the MLS Cup and the US Open Cup in its debut season of 1998. It remains the only MLS Cup Chicago have won, which makes that shirt a relic.

San Jose and LA: Nike's late-1990s experiments

The San Jose Clash wore black and sky blue with a red scorpion crest at the end of the 1990s, a combination no European club would have signed off and now a cult favourite. The club dropped the Clash name in 2000 to become the San Jose Earthquakes, so the scorpion shirts mark a short, strange chapter.

Los Angeles took a different route. The Galaxy's 1996 Nike home shirt is the highest-rated kit of that first MLS season on Football Kit Archive, and the club revived it as a third shirt in 2014 — a throwback to its very first home jersey. For the European equivalent of that nostalgia, our Arsenal classic jerseys cover the same era.

Seattle Sounders 2009: rave green changes the mood

Seattle joined MLS in 2009 and immediately raised the league's standards, on the pitch and in the club shop. The first Sounders home shirt paired the club's rave green with blue and carried an Xbox sponsor, and it sold in volumes that made the rest of the league pay attention. Two MLS Cups followed, in 2016 and 2019.

That kit mattered because it was the first MLS shirt that felt designed for a fanbase rather than a marketing department. It is the dividing line between the old league and the modern one.

Atlanta United 2017: five stripes, full house

Atlanta arrived in 2017 with red and black stripes, golden trim and crowds of more than seventy thousand, and the kit became a city-wide uniform almost overnight. The Five Stripes won the MLS Cup in 2018 wearing a shirt that would look at home in Serie A — worth comparing with our pick of the best Serie A kits of all time.

Inter Miami 2023: the pink shirt that went global

Inter Miami have worn pink and black since their debut season in 2020, and for three years the shirt was an acquired taste. Then Lionel Messi signed in July 2023, pulled on the 2023 home kit, and that pink jersey became one of the most recognisable football shirts on the planet. Stock sold out and has stayed in demand since.

It is the only MLS kit that has genuinely crossed over into global shirt culture, which earns it a place on any list of the best MLS kits. Fans of the man himself will also want our guide to the best Argentina jerseys of all time and the Argentina jerseys collection.

The modern wave: St. Louis, Austin and Minnesota

The newest clubs have been the boldest. St. Louis CITY SC launched in 2023 in a deep red home shirt with a geometric pattern down the flanks, then topped the Western Conference in their first season. Austin FC built an identity around verde, and their 2024 away shirt, a clean white body with green sleeves, is one of the smartest things adidas has made for the league. Minnesota United's 2024 Galaxy of Stars home kit deserves a mention, as does the Columbus Crew's 2008 shirt, their first with a front-of-shirt sponsor and the one they wore to the first of three MLS Cups.

Put the modern MLS era beside Europe and the gap has closed. Compare for yourself against our rankings of the best Premier League kits of all time, the best La Liga kits of all time and the best Eredivisie kits of all time.

The national teams that share the continent are the obvious next step, especially after a World Cup 2026 staged across the United States, Canada and Mexico. See the best USA jerseys of all time, the best Canada national team jerseys, our Mexico national team jerseys guide and the full national team jerseys collection.

Buying a classic MLS shirt: what to check

Three things decide whether an old MLS shirt is a good buy. First, build: pre-2006 jerseys came from four manufacturers with four ideas about fit, so a 1996 adidas large and a 1998 Nike large are not the same garment. Second, sizing: North American shirts of that era were cut generously in US measurements, so read the measurements rather than the label — our football jersey size guide explains how to measure a shirt you already own and buy to match.

Third, authenticity. Early MLS shirts are faked less often than Premier League classics, but Messi-era Inter Miami jerseys are counterfeited constantly. Read how to spot counterfeit football jerseys before you buy from a marketplace,, and our guide to authentic versus replica football jerseys if you are weighing up versions. Once it arrives, caring for your football jersey is what keeps a thirty-year-old print from cracking, and which jerseys gain value is worth a read if you are buying with one eye on resale.

For more on the decade behind most of the entries above, see the best football kits of the 1990s, and the official Major League Soccer site for current club kits.

Shop MLS-era classics and modern kits at SideJersey

Chasing a 1990s oddity or a current shirt in the right size? Our club team jerseys collection and Premier League jerseys are stocked with officially sourced kits, and every order ships from the UK. Our FAQ answers the questions we get most, you can read more about us, and the SideJersey blog has a new kit guide every day. Tell us your pick of the best MLS kits — we will happily argue about the Wiz shirt all afternoon.