Where sports history is written in color.

Welcome to TruColor, a research project dedicated to preserving and analyzing the official colors of professional and collegiate athletics throughout history.

My name is Donovan Moore, and I’ve had a lifelong fascination with team colors. In the early 2000s, I discovered that Pantone provided RGB data for their proprietary color values. That discovery inspired me to start compiling color information for as many teams as I could find. With a professional background in reporting and database development, I began expanding my sports databases to include this critical visual identity data—and over time, it grew into the comprehensive system that powers this site.

The TruColor Databases

TruColor is built on four independent yet interconnected databases, each designed to capture a different dimension of sports history:

• Color Values
  A repository of nearly 32,000 colors across more than 100 libraries, including the Pantone Matching System, Pantone Textiles, Robison-Anton threads, Madeira threads, and many others. Each entry may include RGB (in multiple spaces), CMYK, CIE-L*ab, formula ink mixes, and historical updates when specifications have changed.

• Pro Franchises
  Current and historical color data for over 5,800 professional teams across dozens of leagues—major, minor, and independent—spanning baseball, football (outdoor and indoor), basketball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, volleyball, softball, esports, and more.

• College Athletics
  Information on more than 3,800 colleges and universities (NCAA, NAIA, junior colleges), including school colors, nicknames, conference affiliations, enrollment data, and institutional name changes over time.

• Venues
  A database of over 1,000 stadiums, arenas, and ballparks, capturing details such as naming histories, construction costs, capacities, and playing surfaces.

Beyond the Data

To complement these archives, I’ve built a Color Match utility that allows users to find the closest match to a given RGB or CMYK value across the TruColor database—helping identify practical equivalents when exact colors aren’t available.

Looking ahead, I’m working on expanding the analytical side of TruColor with Power BI dashboards and semantic models, enabling deeper exploration and visualization of trends in sports branding and color use.

This site is both a reference and an evolving project. Stay tuned—new features and data are always on the horizon.

Link: pantone.com