Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Useful purpose for useless merchandise

Interesting nugget fished out by Captain Ed -- what happens to the locker room T-shirts of the losers?

At the end of the Super Bowl telecast, you saw the Colts donning hats and T-shirts proclaiming their victory as Super Bowl champs. The T-shirts usually also say they are the official locker room gear (somehow this adds to the cache of a danged T-shirt) so the replicas will indicate this is the same design the team wore after it won the game/title/etc. The apparel has to be printed up ahead of time so the apparel company reps (in this case, Reebok) can hand out the stuff immediately and spur sales by having players wear the stuff in front of the Super Bowl audience. Thus, Reebok made both Indy-champ gear and Bears champ gear, but only distributed one set.

What happens to the losing team's "champion" apparel? It goes to Africa through a charity, World Vision. That group distributes the surplus to villagers in the middle of nowhere so they gain clothing and the NFL can ensure that (1) the loser is not humiliated by the apparel, (2) profit seekers don't auction the junk on eBay.

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