USC's Championship Hats

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Slate has an article about what happens to losing team championship merchandise -- Buffalo Bills Super Bowl hats, USC championship hats, Illinois championship shirts, etc. A lot of the stuff is donated to charity.

MLB, not surprisingly, tears it all apart. A neat article.

[hormone]

I've heard before that the stuff gets sent to poor people and that's great. Destroying it seems silly. I wanna see a special on Nat'l Geographic when they are deep in the jungle and everyone is running around all native and stuff and then some native goes trotting by in the background with an Eagles or Falcons SB Champs shirt. Here's another question...you always see the winning team celebrating drinking beer and champagne...what does the losing team do with their stuff?...they can ship it to me

[jab8281965]

I've heard before that the stuff gets sent to poor people and that's great. Destroying it seems silly. I wanna see a special on Nat'l Geographic when they are deep in the jungle and everyone is running around all native and stuff and then some native goes trotting by in the background with an Eagles or Falcons SB Champs shirt. Here's another question...you always see the winning team celebrating drinking beer and champagne...what does the losing team do with their stuff?...they can ship it to me

I remember watching video footage from Somalia in 1993 and the US troops were handing out "Buffalo Bills Super Bowl Champions" tshirts and hats to the famine-ridden natives.

What does the losing team do with their booze? They often times bring it to the winning team's lockerroom. My wife's family is in the liquor business in Boston and generally supply Fenway Park with champagne, alcohol, etc..

My brother in law has copies of checks from the California Angels in 1986 for their purchase of Champagne (it was Great Western), and for the Yankees in 2004 for their Champagne.

[hormone]

Also, would those be worth anything or just a collector's item?

[nwtrailtrekker]

one time i believe i saw a carolina panthers superbowl champion t-shirt somewheres. cant remember where though

[meetthemets]

I know that a lot of seized counterfeit merchandise is donated to charity. Most of the Champions merchandise is destroyed.

[griffelh]

MLB evidently doesn't tear it all apart. I bought this 2003 "Yankees World Series Champions" cap on eBay a couple of months ago.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=8714291004

[Michigan Dave]

At Michigan, we horde the stuff. I was going through the storage stuff in the tunnel between the lockerroom at Michigan Stadium and the Crisler Arena lockerroom in the summer of 98, and found some of the Fab 5 national championship shirts. The athletic department actually sold some of the football 2001 BigTen champs hats at a garage sale in 2003. That made me laugh.

[fufkin]

I was at the game last night and same something very interesting. Right after USC scored the touchdown to go up by 12 with 6 minutes to go, 4 men wearing BCS outfits came out of the USC tunnel each carrying a large cardboard box. The four boxes were placed behind the USC bench. After the boxes were placed on the ground, a USC coach (not Pete Carroll) started screaming at the four guys to get rid of the boxes. The four guys picked up the boxes and moved them down to the sideline and put them down near the endzone. As soon as Vince Young scored the touchdown to get back to 38-33, the four guys picked the boxes up and went back into the tunnel.

Maybe it was bad karma!

[bsilva1]

I have a 1996 CWS championship shirt I bought outside Rosenblatt with the LSU logo screened over the Miami "U" after Warren Morris hit the 2 run HR with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th to win. That was back when the CWS was a penny pinching operation.

[Krona]

i have a pat riley caricature shirt for the lakers three peat that never happened in 89. found it at a millers outpost in bakersfield the summer they lost to the pistons.

[Sean84106]

Back in 1997 and 1998 the Jazz had their championship shirts printed up, and after the Jazz lost to the Bulls (both times), they gave the shirts to charity.

[sc49erfan15]

An odd time for this topic to come up, because I saw a bunch of 2004 Oklahoma National Champions shirts at Goodwill today. I've also seen 2003 Panthers Super Bowl Champions shirts and a Mets Subway Series Champion shirt at either TJMaxx or Ross.

But yeah, usually it's donated to charity, some stuff seems to leak out to discount retail outlets.

[winters in buffalo]

That would be fun... to piece together an entire wardrobe comprised solely of shirts from an alternate history.

Dewey Beats Truman!

[rmackman]

Cool I want a 1982 Brewers World Series Champs shirt!

[nafsder2003]

I have a relative who does a lot of printing for stuff like this (a lot of times he'll give me something from the winning side...I have a 1997 Marlins World Series hat, a 2005 White Sox World Series shirt, and a 2004 AFC South Champs Colts sweatshirt from him) and he gave me a few extra copies of the 2002 Indiana Hoosiers National Basketball Champions shirts that he had printed. I don't know what happened to them...I have to go looking through my closet...this thread makes me want to wear them again

[slapshot]

Cool I want a 1982 Brewers World Series Champs shirt!

So do the 1982 Brewers!

[infrared41]

MLB evidently doesn't tear it all apart. I bought this 2003 "Yankees World Series Champions" cap on eBay a couple of months ago.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=8714291004

I used to have an Indians hat that said 1997 World Champions. I have seen more than a few of this type of item at discount stores, outlets, and flea markets. They aren't as rare as you might think.

[OnWis97]

Cool I want a 1982 Brewers World Series Champs shirt!

When I was a kid int the 1980s, I went to a store in Milwaukee that had Brewers 1982 World Champions pennents.

[meetthemets]

He's the Man of the Cloth

Atlanta company had executive on the sideline making sure the winners were wearing right gear.

By Greg Johnson

LA Times Staff Writer

January 6, 2006

Athletes celebrating a bowl game victory by immediately donning championship caps and T-shirts are as much a part of the big game as marching bands. As if by magic, the boxes stashed behind the winning team's bench are ripped open during the final seconds so the victors can enjoy their spoils.

It doesn't happen by accident. On Wednesday night at the Rose Bowl, Cory Moss was charged with making sure that Texas could strut its stuff ? and that the USC merchandise didn't end up on EBay. The vice president of Atlanta-based Collegiate Licensing Co. was standing on the USC sideline for much of the game but had to execute a quick end-around as the Trojans' lead evaporated.

"If the tables had started to turn again we would have run back to the other side," he said.

Collegiate Licensing, which handles apparel and merchandise licensing for the BCS bowl series, had 144 of the Nike-produced championship hats and T-shirts available for each team's players and coaches.

Why 12 dozen hats and T-shirts? "We've been doing this since 1995 and that number just seems to work," Moss said.

Moss works with team equipment managers and trainers to make sure players and coaches get their souvenirs: "You don't have much time to do it and there are a lot of hands grabbing." His squad also keeps close tabs on boxes stuffed with the loser's merchandise.

Though the celebratory hats and T-shirts have become a post-game ritual, their real purpose is to help Nike and other apparel companies market the flood of related merchandise made available almost immediately through retail outlets in the championship team's hometown and at kiosks and storefronts in cities where bowl games are played. Some of the merchandise is shipped to retailers weeks before the game. Most costlier products, though, are manufactured after the game ends. The University of Texas bookstore, for example, won't ship many of its upscale items until Jan. 19.

"Licensed companies have production staff sitting in their factories," Moss said. "They're probably watching the game on television and hit the button so they can begin shipping later that night."

What will happen to the USC caps and T-shirts? The Rose and other bowls now try to ship the loser's garb to charitable organizations outside of the U.S. "They try to find a good use for it ? as long as it's not in this country," Moss said.