I’ve heard numerous times that all the T shirts and hats from the losing team in a championship game are shipped to developing countries. So, a lot of people in South Sudan can look forward to wearing Notre Dame BCS Championship T shirts in the upcoming weeks.
Is this actually true? Anyone have verified pictures of villages with people wearing these?
How about the other merchandise? For example, on Groupon right now, I can buy Alabama National Championship pint glasses. There is no way that it makes any economic sense to ship crates of pint glasses all the way from the United States to a foreign country just to dispose of them.
My wild ass guess is that the vast majority of unused merchandise from the losing team is simply destroyed and/or recycled and it just a part of doing business.
Some of the merchandise will get sold locally. Then it gets sold to brokers. It may end up at discount stores, but will often be sold overseas. If it has value, it will be sold before being destroyed or recycled. Throwing away valuable goods isn’t part of doing business.
Wouldn’t that be part of the licensing agreement though? Let’s say a screwjob call by a ref or umpire is a major reason the winning team won. I’d think the NFL/NCAA/NBA/MLB or whomever would not want ANY merchandise at all to be available for the losing team. I’m sure some workers have smuggled out a few from time to time, but I can’t imagine that the a billion dollar sports league would want this type of merchandise available for purchase at the dollar store.
They probably don’t care. No one would pay to make it in the first place if they were denied the ability to sell it. It’s not like they send all of it overseas immediately. But mostly it’s boxed up and after a few boxes are opened and products distributed as souveniers, and some of it is sold to collectors. But most of it is going to be kept wrapped up and sold for whatever value it still has.
In my travels and work, I’ve never noticed a specific trend of people wearing would-be champion gear, although I’m not sure it’d stand out in the very random (and often hilariously inappropriate) assortment of western used and discount clothing that makes its way to the developing world… I could certainly see it happening with a box or two here and there, but I doubt it happens in any sort of organized, systematic way.
See, I think the leagues do care. The NFL is so protective of everything that they send out cease and desist orders to Joe’s Bar and Grill in Clusterfuck, North Dakota for using the word Super Bowl. I can’t imagine them shrugging off officially licensed merchandise being sold with the losing team being proclaimed as Super Bowl Champion.
They go after Joe’s Bar and Grill for using NFL trademarks and copyrights without permission or paying royalties. That’s not the case with the merchandise. It’s been licensed and the royalties paid already. The owners of that merchandise whether it’s a sports league or a licensed outlet still is in the business of making money, not wasting it.
Shipping costs are pretty small in the scheme of things, so that wouldn’t make it uneconomical. I would be very surprised if this happened though in Australia we do get lot’s of really cheap NBA/NFL gear flooding in from unsuccessful franchises. That’s how I started following Miami in the NBA, they were crap so we got stuff cheap, now with Mr James in town they have all gone back up to full price looks like the Wizards are going to be the new discount team here now.
Well, I don’t know for certain, and this is a guess, but I’m with dalej42 on this one.
Has anyone here in the USA seen a Notre Dame 2012 National Champions t-shirt? (they just lost to Alabama yesterday)
Or a New England Patriots Super Bowl XLVI Champions, Undefeated Perfect Season t-shirt? (they lost their only game of last season to the NY Giants)
Or has anyone seen here an equivalent losing team’s claimed winning t-shirt, ever, at all?
If dalej42 were wrong, we’d likely have seen such shirts.
The leagues do care and they don’t want such contraband (false claims on t-shirts) around where their inaccurate sayings would be obvious. It’s merely the cost of doing business: print up X hundreds of both t-shirts (NY Giants are Super Bowl Champs, and NE Pats are too). Be ready to sell the winning team’s shirts, and start printing up some more, but contractually agree to ship the loser’s version to Outer Bumfuck, Ethiopia. You’ll get a tax break for donating new clothes to Ethipia’s poor, but you must dump that merchandise.
A friend’s daughter was serving in the Peace Corp somewhere in Kenya in the mid 90’s. When she first got there she noticed a number of folks wearing t-shirts celebrating the Seattle Sonics NBA championship. The Sonics lost in the finals a few months earlier to the Chicago Bulls.
Just as an aside, the practice of shipping unwanted clothing to Africa to be distributed for free has wreaked havoc on the African clothing industry, and has contributed to unemployment.
You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Some people believe you just can’t win.
Bollocks.
If free clothes have “wreaked havoc” on Africa’s clothing industry, that tells me a lot of free clothes have been distributed, and a lot of people got help in the form of free clothes. This might be a better problem to have.
Typically they make up just a few copies of both shirts right before the game, with the designs all set up. Those go out to the teams to be ready in the locker rooms and a few other places. Once the game is decided they can ramp up production very quickly and get enough items in the stores for the rush the next day.
I remember stories before the Super Bowls about t-shirt shops with their presses all set up and ready to go, waiting to see who wins. But mass quantities of shirts aren’t made until the game is decided.
I recall hearing something about this years ago. I mentioned it to my son and he had already known about it from a website that featured photos of people in just such attire. I think this was before the ubiquitous smart phone so I don’t know that I ever saw the site, or if it really existed.
Here is a piece about the baseball riches available in Ghana:
*But to be prepared for each team’s potential victory ceremony, the MLB prepares hats and T-shirts – 288 of each item for each team – before each playoff series has been decided. This year, when at least 12 teams were in hard-fought competition for eight playoff spots, league organizers printed apparel for every possible scenario. The result: Thousands of articles of clothing announcing the Padres’, Mets’, and other vanquished teams’ seasonal victories are en route to Ghana. And “the clicker continues to click,” adds Mr. Armus.
While the MLB is just beginning to expand its relationship with World Vision, the NFL has been working with the group to send its postseason gear to Africa for years.*
Here’s a Slate magazine Explainer column on this question, although it’s six years old. According to the article, Major League Baseball shreds the losing team’s merchandise. The NFL donates it to World Vision. The NBA and the NCAA donate it as well.
You know, I should have mentioned donations. It’s an easy way to make money from the mechandise through a tax deduction, and good marketing for the brand.
A buddy of mine is the proud owner of a couple of St. Louis Cardinals 1985 World Series Champions t-shirts. He loves to wear it to Kansas City ball games. He found them on sale after the Cards blew that series.
The amount of apparel for the losing team is relatively small – it’s really only worth selling at the stadium after the game and maybe could be kept in the back of the losing team’s official stores. It can be manufactured as soon as the final gun goes off and be in stores the next day (the day after, at the most) if the team wins, and nowadays online sales can be offered as soon as the game is official.
I did once get the equivalent in the political sphere: a Gore/Leiberman inauguration button. That was slightly different; both were put on sale after the election.