As a Charger fan that has never experienced a Super Bowl win, I am a proud owner of a framed “San Diego Chargers Super Bowl XXIX Champions” T-Shirt from 1994…
Yeah the one we lost 49-23 to Steve Young and the Niners’ 
How long does it take to create a batch of merchandise nowadays, and is it significantly faster than in the 90s?
When Dallas won the NBA Championship a couple years ago, I recall seeing a sporting goods store during the finals having a sign saying they’d be open at midnight or something like that on whatever night they won with championship merchandise to sell–but does that mean they had it all on hand already, or is a couple hours enough to get a few boxes of t-shirts printed and shipped from a local facility?
If the latter, was it different in the 90s? I could easily see how, if they needed a couple of days lead back then, that the story of poor African kids wearing Bills Super Bowl Champion shirts could sustain itself in the news, even if the only “incorrect” stuff nowadays is a very small amount.
Scroll down to see Patriots perfect season shirt.
Awesome.
“Help” in a form that makes everyone poorer. See, that’s the problem with donations of goods. It doesn’t actually address what people need. Africa had its own clothing. People didn’t need free clothing. And they got free clothing, but in the meantime textile makers, weavers, tailors – SKILLED labor – merchants, and all kinds of related people lost their livelihoods.
Destruction of a productive economic sector is not a “better problem to have.”
Rich, don’t sell yourself short and give yourself three more points.
Wasn’t the final score there 49-26?
That said, the 1981 season is where you and the Chargers got hosed. The AFC Championship game was played at Cincinnati that year. The weather was bitterly cold, snowy, and windy. Dan Fouts and Air Coryell had the NFL’s most potent offense, a scoring juggernaut. But the weather did them in, not the Bengals, who went on to lose Super Bowl XVI and give the Niners their first of five Super Bowl victories.
The Chargers should’ve gone all the way in that season.
The purpose of the textile industry is to provide clothing for Africans, it does this for a price. If free clothing is provided than the resources previously used for clothing manufacture can be used for other things. This makes Africa richer. It harms people in the clothing manufacture business in the same way that cheap solar power would hurt people in the coal industry. However since the number of people who need clothes vastly outnumbers the people who manufacture clothes it is welfare improving.
It’s not the same thing. It’s the same as hurting the coal industry by giving people free coal.
You are right about the score… and that game in Cincy… I was a wee lad of 12 and remember crying when they lost. I had 10 or so Air Coryell type posters in my room. John Jefferson, Kellen Winslow, Chuck Munice, James Brooks, Wes Chandler, Charlie Joiner and of course Fouts… man those days were awesome even if we never won the bowl.
It’s the exact same mechanism as when cheap stuff from China fills our stores, rather than good made by American workers. It has a complex effect on the economy, but there is a pretty immediate economic hit that comes from relying on cheap (or, sometimes, free!) good from overseas rather than from local manufacturing that creates employment and keeps money within an economy.
Most African countries have strong local clothing industries. Many textiles are produced locally, distributed through local distribution systems,and sewn into clothing on the community level by independent tailors and small-scale clothing manufacturers. It’s enough to keep a lot of people employed. Tailoring, especially, is relatively affordable to get into (you can do it with nothing more than a sewing machine and a small bit of space- clients typically provide their own cloth and notions), is skilled but accessible even when school systems are poor, and can support a family relatively well. Culturally, clothing is a big deal in much of Africa, much more than it is in the US. Fabric and design is used to display individual creativity, group affiliation, etc. Even in villages with nothing, you will find beautiful, well-cared for, thoughtfully designed local clothing.
What usually happens is that charity clothing gets sold in great heaps at marketplaces. It’s slighting cheaper than local clothing, but not enough that it is clothing the great naked masses or anything. Much of it is in poorly suited for the local environment (snowsuits were big in Cameroon) and just plain odd (I had a student with a shirt that said, for example, “Do you fancy a fuck?”) It varies by country, but often it is broke young men and children who wear “charity” clothing.
The middlemen doing the selling do make a living, but not as much money is being returned to the economy as it is with locally manufactured goods. Different programs operate in different ways, and some manage to return the money to the economy in other ways (for example, by selling the clothing to local traders, and then using the sales money to fund community projects. But certainly in the early days and among some organizations, the whole used clothing to Africa thing was basically a tax write off scam the did real economic damage to poor countries.
I worked in a Sports Authority store in the Seattle Area when the Seahawks were in the superbowl. We had a ton of superbowl shirts on the floor, and Seahawks Superbowl Champions shirts boxed up in the back to be put out the moment the hawks won.
When they didn’t, we weren’t allowed to sell them. The NFL VERY much cares about there not being authentically made NFL merchandise with the wrong champions on them, we were told they were all to be destroyed. We would’ve been fired instantly for selling any of them.
I’m not doubting you since you’ve had the actual experience. But I’ve seen shirts and hats with the wrong winner on them. They may have been sold illegally though.
My guess would be that items coming from the US are being donated for a write-off, rather than being sold. Items might be sold, however, by rogue manufacturers overseas.
They’re either bootlegs (not made by NFL liscensees) or they were stolen by employees before the rest got returned for destruction or shipping overseas, the NFL definitely doesn’t want them around. So they very much DO care even though they’ve already been printed.
Duly noted. Thanks for the info.
I think that the overriding reason is PR. The Leagues look better by saying that the clothing is donated to the poor rather than being destroyed.
Human beings are not like natural resources or capital in terms of fungibility or mobility. Displace an entire functional economic sector that employs large numbers of people in a single blow when it has knock-on effects throughout society and you may condemn multiple generations to underemployment and poverty and set back overall economic, political, social, educational, and technological development by decades or worse.
My biggest regret as a sports fan was at the Sugar Bowl when UF beat my Seminoles. After the game, I had the chance to buy an FSU championship shirt, and didn’t. 
But they were absolutely on sale, in lots of places, right next to the UF ones.
-D/a
I guess there really isn’t a definite answer, although the Sports Authority story makes sense.
I’d say the most logical story is that a token amount of the shirts are donated, for good publicity as linked in the NY Times article. I’m still thinking that most of the legitimate ones are destroyed. I’m not sure what the cost is to print up these shirts, but if you can sell them for $20-30 then it is probably profitable for the company with the official license. Of course, that company can then immediately print up more shirts if they think demand will warrant it. I’d imagine there would have been a huge demand for Notre Dame shirts if they would have won their first title in years.
I have a 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks shirt that I bought right after the win over the Yankees. I still have the shirt, but it has only been worn a few times. Let’s just say this isn’t the highest quality T shirt I’ve ever purchased for the $25 or so it cost me.