All U.S. championship games in just about every sport now feature the quick donning of t-shirts and hats seconds after the game declaring their obvious victory. The speed at which the clothes circulate amongst the players, some even getting hats on before the end of the game, suggests to me that they were made before the game.
My question is what happens to the losing shirts, the “Dewey defeats Truman” hats that I assume were also printed? I’m sure that they don’t do a huge run of this merchandise, just enough for the players and the inevitble toddler being hugged by his athlete father. Are they all quickly trashed or burned? If so, that seems a bit of a waste. And if they aren’t, where could you find one? Do you need an inside man at the clubhouse to make out with what I consider the coolest corporate schwag available?
Of course they are made ahead of time and of course there is a lot of waste. This is America, we’re known to be wasteful!
That is why, if you buy a “championship” hat or tee-shirt immediately after the deciding contest you will pay an exorbitant rate. You are actually buying 2 items, the item for the team that won and the item that was produced and trashed for the team that lost.
I suppose at some point there will be an aftermarket on Ebay for erroneous championship wear. (Maybe there is one already).
This question was floated around here some time ago. One Doper had done some relief work in Romania, and reported that he or she saw lots of kids wearing “Buffalo Bills - Super Bowl Champions” shirts. The families get these clothes as freebies.
When St. Louis was expecting an NFL expansion team in the mid-90s, the backers made up thousands of T-shirts with the new team logo. They didn’t get the team, and the NFL ordered them to shred all the shirts. It made for an interesting story on the evening news.
Well, glad to know that the stuff isn’t wasted. But, if it’s going to take me moving to a village in Thirdworldistan to get one, I guess I’ll pass. Thanks for the info.
An article that I read (sorry that I can’t be more specific) said that the manufacturer makes as few as they can get away with before the game/series is over (for both teams). Once the outcome is known, the production line kicks into high gear (that night, if the article was to be believed) making the “correct” ones for distribution.
I kinda regret that post of mine. I’m under the influence of Cipro. (no, not for anthrax)
Anyway since the “ordinal-world” phrase is a Western invention, I figure all of Europe is the 1st/old-world. 3rd seems like a misnomer… There was old-world and new-world, what to call the rest?
And the Jack Kirby gave us the 4th-world.
This has probably already been discussed. I am sorry. I’ll shut up.
This topic has been covered several times before. A lot of questions have been asked on more than one occasion. If you use the search function you can find those old threads. Here are a couple: