Matt Soniak
What Happens to the Losing Team’s Championship Shirts?
by Matt Soniak - February 1, 2012 - 12:01 PM

Reuters/Oswaldo Rivas/Landov

After a Big Game in any sport, fans and players are going to be clamoring for commemorative merchandise, often just minutes after the game ends. To meet this demand and cash in on the wallet-loosening “We’re #1″ euphoria, manufacturers and retailers produce and stock two sets of t-shirts, hats and other merchandise, declaring each team the champ. Based on strong sales after the Chicago Bears’ 2007 NFC Championship win, Sports Authority printed more than 15,000 shirts proclaiming a Bears Super Bowl victory well before the game even started. And then the Colts beat the Bears, 29-17.

Image credit: World Vision

That’s a lot of misprinted shirts that can’t hit store shelves, and seem like fine candidates for the incinerator, instead. And for a long time, that’s where they went, with all four major American pro sports leagues — MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL — requiring the destruction of incorrect post-season apparel.

Fortunately, the leagues have changed the way they do things and now all four – plus manufacturers and retailers like Reebok, Sports Authority, Dick’s and Modell’s — instead give the gear to a group called World Vision, which saves the merch from certain doom and puts it to use.

Image credit: World Vision

The international humanitarian aid group collects the unwanted items over the days following the game at their distribution center in Pittsburgh, then ships it overseas to people living in disaster areas and impoverished nations. After losing Super Bowl XLIII in 2009, Arizona Cardinals gear was sent to children and families living in extreme poverty in El Salvador. In 2010, after the New Orleans Saints defeated Indianapolis, the Colts gear printed up for Super Bowl XLIV was sent to earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Image credit: World Vision

Last year, after Pittsburgh lost to the Green Bay Packers, the Steelers Super Bowl apparel went to Zambia, Armenia, Nicaragua and Romania.

Image credit: World Vision

A representative for World Vision said they’re not sure where the donated Giants/Patriots gear will be going this year. Once they get the product and take inventory, they’ll get in touch with their foreign staff and see who needs what where.

Image credit: World Vision

Of course, there are people right here in the U.S. who desperately need a fresh, clean t-shirt or jacket. Why not give it to them? Overseas distribution is part of the agreement between the leagues and World Vision. The leagues don’t want the donated items appearing on TV or popping up on eBay, so they get them out of the country. The farther away the clothing is, the less likely it is to offend a losing player (or heartbroken Texas Rangers fan).

Matt wrote portions of this story after the New York Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2009 World Series.

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Comments (31)

  1. As much as I love the fact that these shirts are donated to charity….it seems to me that we could donate so much more to charity by selling the shirts (I know I’d pay twice as much for the losing team’s shirt, especially if it was my team) and then giving the money to charities so they can provide food and clothing?

    Hopefully someone out there who receives the shirts and has access to a computer can sell them online(I know, I know, not too many will, but I’m just hoping here…again with the charities being able to provide more than just a few tshirts)

    posted by Lola on 2-1-2012 at 12:28 pm

  2. Just think – somewhere in a developing nation, there are entire villages of people who think the Buffalo Bills had one hell of a dynasty in the 90s.

    posted by Bob on 2-1-2012 at 12:32 pm

  3. ouch…still hurts to see the Pats 19-0 shirt. Payback will be served this Sunday.

    Go Pats!!!

    posted by izzi on 2-1-2012 at 1:04 pm

  4. Bill Easterly covered this last year:

    http://aidwatchers.com/2011/03/world-vision-super-bowl-shirts-the-final-chapter/

    posted by Jason on 2-1-2012 at 1:10 pm

  5. Lola — while you’re right, the whole point is that the NFL doesn’t want the losing team’s merchandise showing up in America. It’s either this or the incinerator. I suspect they also monitor eBay to see if anybody’s reimporting them. And yes, they can (and most likely will) sue anybody they find to be infringing in that regard.

    posted by Calli Arcale on 2-1-2012 at 1:10 pm

  6. You can also find vendors selling them on the roadside in Florida them the day after the games. My father has a whole collection of them.

    posted by Ronda Lamm on 2-1-2012 at 1:12 pm

  7. I read somewhere that the donation of these shirts is actually bad to the local economy they are shipped to. I think the jist of it was, how can a small local clothing company compete in a tough economically challenged market when they are charging for the same thing someone else is giving away. Just goes to show that you can’t win when you try to do good.

    posted by They Call Me Bruce on 2-1-2012 at 1:39 pm

  8. Unfortunately, the international distribution of America’s unwanted goods undermines indigenous businesses and international development groups. A woman needs to feed her children, so she learns to sew so that she can sell her goods to her community and earn income for her family. But the community is given freebies, so why would they buy from their neighbor? The woman continues in poverty, the community has no incentive to learn a trade, and the cycle goes on for generations.

    When immediate disaster relief is needed, it’s fine to give. But when the disaster is over and development begins, people need to be trained to develop their communities, not trained to receive free stuff.

    Let’s stop giving and start teaching.

    posted by Jason on 2-1-2012 at 1:40 pm

  9. “When immediate disaster relief is needed, it’s fine to give. But when the disaster is over and development begins, people need to be trained to develop their communities, not trained to receive free stuff.

    Let’s stop giving and start teaching.”

    If only the Democratic Party would learn that lesson.

    posted by Lisa on 2-1-2012 at 1:46 pm

  10. Lola – agreed.

    I would pay a whole lot for some of the losing team’s merchandise, especially when it’s my team…

    Ronda – has your dad ever considered buying a bunch and selling on ebay?

    posted by C on 2-1-2012 at 2:05 pm

  11. Bruce and Jason -
    World Vision does a lot to build entrepreneurism in those communities. Their website and catalogues give donors opportunities to pay for goats, chickens, seed, and other startup materials for the adults in those areas.

    posted by ahi on 2-1-2012 at 2:33 pm

  12. Ronda — well, I guess I’m wrong, then!

    posted by Calli Arcale on 2-1-2012 at 2:37 pm

  13. There was an episode of American Dad where a group of African refugees received old E! Entertainment Network t-shirts, so I think they got that idea from this.

    posted by Dan on 2-1-2012 at 2:39 pm

  14. If we want to ‘teach’ instead of just ‘give’ we could teach the people who receive these gifts how to make use of them in other ways. You can cut up a bunch of shirts, sew them together and fashion a rug, or quilts, or diapers, or all types of goods out of them. This way the woman who learned to sew to feed her children can recieve free materials and then sell her goods. Problem solved?

    posted by notmycat on 2-1-2012 at 2:45 pm

  15. ahi-
    I agree. World Vision does a great work in helping communities to see their own value and begin to change things for the better. Many others do this as well, and my comment was certainly not intended to negatively portray the work of World Vision or any others.

    I wonder if there are other methods that orgs might consider rather than simply giving away these products.

    I think the problem lies more in the reality that manufacturers don’t want their products to go to waste, so they choose to “do good” by giving them away. It just doesn’t always turn out to be good for everyone in the end.

    posted by Jason on 2-1-2012 at 2:50 pm

  16. I actually have a ballcap declaring the Seattle Seahawks as winners of Super Bowl XL. A friend of mine was somewhere in South America (Peru, I think), and found a box of them for sale in a small shop. He bought the whole box for $45, and passed them out to all of his “lovable loser” Seahawks friends.

    posted by Kevin on 2-1-2012 at 2:51 pm

  17. notmycat-
    Giving them to one woman (or a few people) to produce sellable merchandise is certainly a better option than giving them to whole communities where no one profits in the long-term.

    posted by Jason on 2-1-2012 at 2:53 pm

  18. The real question is why can’t they just hold off on making them until after the game (minus a few needed for the players). Do I really need my championship shirt at 9am? If I have to wait until 5 or the next day is it really such a bad thing?

    posted by They Call Me Bruce on 2-1-2012 at 3:05 pm

  19. Hey, guys & gals! I have an old HOUSTON OILERS hoodie that I got from Japan. Is it worth anything now? Probanly NOT!

    posted by The OTHER Quincy Jones on 2-1-2012 at 3:29 pm

  20. If this merchandise is being given to an orphanage how the heck is that impacting the local economy. they cannot afford to buy anything and they need the merchandise. I’m pretty sure World Vision knows what they are doing. They’ve been around for a while now and would consider the ramifications of the local ecomony if they just gave the stuff away to anyone walking down the street.

    posted by Maria on 2-1-2012 at 5:20 pm

  21. If you look really closely and can get lucky, very rarely, sometimes one or two can sneak into smaller stores- I once managed to purchase a “2005 AFC Champion Denver Broncos” t-shirt at a Big Lots in Vermont.

    posted by Alan Smithee on 2-2-2012 at 2:05 am

  22. @They call me Bruce

    The time frame for production wouldn’t work that easily. The products are made before with time to actually ship to the stores. Since there are so many products made, they wouldn’t be available the next day. There would be a longer time to wait for the products to actually hit the stores. Once the excitement of a win calms down, they probably wouldn’t sell as many items. So it does make sense for them to be available the next day.

    posted by crankiefrankie on 2-2-2012 at 8:34 am

  23. I lived and worked in Africa for 20 years in different ‘development’ roles. I’ve bought shirts like the above. LA Lakers shirts celebrating their winning the championship in years they didn’t win it, and so forth. It doesn’t happen in only football! And a lot of these shirts land on the local used clothing market. Before internet was widely available, I thought the shirts were accurate :) – then after internet arrived, I realized that these were the rejects.

    As far as the question about these shirts hurting the local garment industries; it is now a moot point as the local garment industries have been virtually destroyed by the large import of used clothing from the USA and Europe. Buyers regularly go through flea markets and large yard sales and buy up large quantities of used clothing. The clothes are bundled into large bales, like old-fashioned square hay bales, and shipped to less-developed-countries for sale at prices that undercut any prices local producers can compete with. So it wasn’t all the NFL and World Vision.

    posted by Jbuuty on 2-2-2012 at 11:52 am

  24. As a Browns fan that Squeelers merchandise makes my day! I know it is sad that their not winning the Superbowl is my joy, but anyone that knows the Browns should understand!

    posted by JW on 2-2-2012 at 11:57 am

  25. I’d like to respond to Maria. I’ve seen some of what World Vision does, and I think they do a good job. But it isn’t true that they always know what they are doing, just like all of the other organizations that try to help people.

    Lots of mistakes are made. And the large scale giving of aid has often been damaging to local economies. This is widely known in the relief and development world. Unfortunately, there is something known as donor-driven development and aid, which means that donors, e.g., the people with the money, often determine what happens more than those who actually have the know how.

    Within this relief-development-aid world there is always the debate about when relief in an emergency ends, and therefore providing food, clothing, etc., hurts the economy. Different agencies disagree on this; and some of the disagreement is donor-driven, i.e., money calls the shots.

    posted by Jbuuty on 2-2-2012 at 12:01 pm

  26. This is something I’ve always wondered about. I’m certain that over the years more than just a few people have snatched the loser’s shirt for their own collection.
    Just think – next week in some faraway land a bunch of kids will be wearing Patriot shirts…

    posted by Jim @NeverStopTraveling on 2-4-2012 at 8:00 am

  27. Are these companies able to use these gifts as a tax write-off?

    posted by Martha on 2-5-2012 at 10:17 am

  28. Tampa Bay, ’08, the way it should’ve been…

    posted by Isabella on 2-5-2012 at 7:14 pm

  29. haha… that’s awesome that in the third world, we are creating this alternate universe filled with the opposite outcomes from sports finales!

    the multiverse isn’t far… it’s just in poor countries!

    posted by jin on 2-7-2012 at 12:58 am

  30. It’s great that the companies work with World Vision like this! That Bills comment is so funny too! Crazy thing is, of course, most of the people who get these shirts don’t know a lick of English or have a clue what the shirt reads. I talked with some missionaries who just flew back in from Cameroon last week. They said the locals are happy to wear whatever they are given, including a guy who loved his pink t-shirt that read BABY ON BOARD with an arrow pointing to his belly. He loved it so much, and it was the first “new” shirt he had gotten in a long time, so they didn’t have the heart to interpret it for him and explain how silly that was.

    posted by southernsportswriter on 2-13-2012 at 11:53 pm

  31. Does anyone realize the size of an NFL athlete? Especially when shirts are made larger to fit over their equipment…. Now we have all seen the size of the people living in third world countries. Just think of a double XL t-shirt on one of them.

    posted by Steve on 2-14-2012 at 10:26 pm

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