CHICAGO  For sports fans, black is the new white.

In the past few weeks, several teams have promoted “blackouts,” urging fans to dress a bit like Johnny Cash in an attempt to create an intimidating atmosphere, build camaraderie and, basically, look cool for television viewers.

The trend of trying to get a game’s audience unified in a single color  often in white or in one of a team’s dominant shades, no matter how garish  is nothing new. But it has now reached the darkest side of the color wheel.

Blackouts have rolled through college football most of all, including the Sept. 27 game between No. 3 Georgia and No. 8 Alabama. Clothes do not make the team, apparently, but fans happened to be well dressed for a funeral. Georgia fell behind, 31-0, on the way to a 41-30 defeat.

No team has pulled off the blackout with as much aplomb as baseball’s White Sox last Tuesday night  the same night that Middle Tennessee State’s football team celebrated an appearance on ESPN2 with a blackout of its own. Fans flipping channels might have thought the color had gone out on their flat screens.