You can find companies that sell defunct team jerseys such as WHA or Negro league teams so at least some one is buying them. You occasionally see jerseys for the fictional Charlestown Chiefs from the movie “Slapshot” at hockey games (or did pre Wuhan virus although a few teams a letting a couple thousand fans in).
Whenever I go to a Minnesota Wild game I’d say a significant percentage of the jerseys worn by the fans are Northstar jerseys. They seem to sell them side by side with the Wild jerseys around town.
They’re still so popular that last week the Wild were wearing throwback jerseys sporting the Northstar colors.
On the other hand, you still see a surprising number of Oilers-related shirts and things in Houston, some 20-odd years after the Oilers left for Tennessee.
There’s a company in Calgary, https://www.cofdead.ca/ that sells defunct area t-shirts. They started with the Calgary Cannons which became the Springfield Isotopes (no, really). Now you can get Boomers (pro soccer), 88s (height restricted basketball) and Radz (roller hockey) shirts among others. No Cowboys or Stampeders hockey shirts though. I’d be down for some of those.
The Albuquerque Isotopes aren’t (yet) defunct, but they have some cool merch to go with the awesome name
In an interesting wrinkle, back in 2018 minor league baseball started a marketing effort aimed at Latinx folks. So the team now has 2 names: Isotopes and also Mariachis de Nuevo Mexico. With a whole different theme, etc. And of course the opportunity to sell twice the merch to the same crowds.
COVID may well have killed minor league baseball in the USA. Or at least mortally wounded it. A bit too early to tell.
You too can buy a Macon Whoopee Tshirt. Santa hasn’t brought me one yet, but she means too. Every time Dave Starman is on TV, we fondly reminisce about his truly glorious past, but i have never seen any of the team’s gear.
Hard to imagine now, and it sounds very strange but for a long time the Redskins were the NFL’s southernmost team. Franchise founder and owner (and notorious racist) George Preston Marshall was keenly aware of this and played to that fact as much as possible. The Redskins had a HUGE following in the south, and believe it or not, to this day there are still “Redskins bars” peppered around the south. Much less so than there used to be of course, but they’re out there. My friend and I randomly found one in New Orleans a couple years ago. It appeared to be quite popular, still.
In my unscientific opinion it is much more prevalent now than years ago. I had to work hard to find my father a Brooklyn Dodger hat years ago. Now it’s easy to find. There is a market for hipster sports fans who want to be a little cooler than the guy wearing the current star’s jersey. This is coming from someone who wears a Sidd Finch jersey to Mets games.
Didn’t mean to zing you. I was just struck by the idea of two teams having such a technerdish moniker.
I assumed the Springfield Isotopes were an unrelated team in an unrelated sport and that the Springfield in question was some obscure Canadian town near a uranium mine. I suppose I could have looked up Calgary Cannons, but wasn’t that ambitious.
Isn’t this pretty common though? A lot of bars will cater to one specific team, either college, NFL or both. Union Pub in Washington, D.C. is a Chicago Bears bar for example.
It’s common in cities with large transplant and/or transient populations, like D.C. Having a sports bar dedicated to a team several states away in areas where if your parents weren’t born there you’re an outsider is rather more unusual. I don’t know about New Orleans specifically, if out-of-state team bars are common, but you can find Redskins fans in places in the South you wouldn’t expect them, even in regions that now have NFL teams.
The souvenir store at Fenway Park used to sell all sorts of defunct team items. That’s where I got a Washington Senators cap many years ago. As far as I know, though, they no longer do. I guess the Boston market for St. Louis Browns items, etc. was not exactly thriving.
I grew up in SC. We saw Washington every Sunday on TV. The AFC game we got was Miami. Usually there was one national game, as well. Those were our only choices. I’m still a fan of those teams even though the Falcons and Panthers are now much closer.