What happens to all the ‘championship’ t-shirts after TCU’s devastating defeat?
Merchandise celebrating a team’s victory in a national championship game can fly off the shelves in record time. But what happens when the team loses?
TCU’s devastating defeat to Georgia in the College Football Playoff National Championship game Monday night means boxes of “Horned Frogs are Champions” gear are sitting in stores without buyers.
A championship game is a conundrum for sellers of merchandise that capitalize on the winners. It’s a boon when the hometown team wins. But what if they lose?
For Academy Sports + Outdoors, who has 107 stores across Texas and another 20 in Georgia, Monday’s game was a textbook example of the problem. As early as last Thursday, Academy stores started receiving “National Champions” gear ahead of the Monday matchup.
Now, since Georgia won, Fort Worth area Academy stores that received “National Champions” TCU gear are sending the product back, said Tyler Sumrall, senior public relations specialist with the company.
“All we know is we send it back to the vendor, and what they do with [the merchandise] is up to their discretion,” Sumrall added.
WHAT HAPPENS TO MERCHANDISE OF LOSING TEAM?
Typically, for major sporting events and championships, merchandise vendors produce winning items for both teams so they’d have a product to sell immediately after the game.
This means only one team’s merchandise will be widely available across local and online retailers. The other team’s merchandise will basically disappear.
That will be the case for Academy stores who received “National Champions” gear from shirts and hoodies, to other merchandise. Academy employees never even got a peek at the TCU gear, since they weren’t allowed to open the merchandise boxes until after the Frogs won, Sumrall said.
Several North Texas Academy stores even planned to stay open late Monday night in the event of a Horned Frogs win. Any chances of staying late were squashed with Georgia’s 65-7 rout of TCU.
What are other sports retailers doing with unopened gear?
Academy isn’t the only sports retailer that had TCU “National Champions” gear ready to be sold.
Rally House, who has 18 stores in North Texas, didn’t plan to stay open late Monday night, but was ready to have gear ready come Tuesday morning, said Colin Novick, media producer for the company.
If TCU would have won Monday, vendors would have shipped Rally House game-winning merchandise that night for stores to have available Tuesday. Additional shipments were also planned for Wednesday and Thursday, Novick said.
However, since the Frogs lost, vendors simply just didn’t ship Rally House any game-winning product on Monday night, Novick said.
Dick’s Sporting Goods, who has several stores across North Texas, was not planning on staying open late Monday night either. The sports retailer would have opened normal hours on Tuesday for fans to shop Frogs gear, said Kristina Hart, account executive at 160over90.
Dick’s declined to comment on what would happen with TCU game-winning gear.
