Somebody is going to lose the World Series. It's true. I have heard this is how these things work. But, when the inevitable happens, where do all their commemorative hats, T-shirts, shoelaces, giant foam hands, etc. go? After all, nobody knows which team will win. To meet the instant, post-game demand, manufacturers have all that championship memorabilia--for both teams--made up and sitting in a warehouse before the final game is even a twinkle in an announcer's eye.
If you guessed that it ends up in a dump, you'd be wrong. Mental_floss investigated and found the World Vision, an international Christian charity, gets the losing gear from baseball, football and basketball.
The merchandise doesn't go to waste, people living in poverty receive new, clean clothes, and the clothing makers recoup some of their losses--they get tax credits for the charitable donations. Why don't the clothes go to needy families in the United States? Overseas donation is part of the agreement between World Vision and the leagues. The farther away the clothing is, the less likely it is to offend a losing player (or heartbroken Buffalo Bills fan).
In fact, fear of fan alienation used to keep the MLB from donating. Up until two years ago, they required all inaccurate championship clothing be destroyed.
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That's just silly. The Buffalo Bills haven't been anywhere close to a game that would warrant a shirt since 1995.
The world doesn't want our damned t-shirts: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/tshirttravels/film.html
Shouldn't this be considered abuse of the poverty-stricken?
A Boston Globe story on someone who hunted down the shirts that WOULD have been sold had the Patriots gone 19-0 in that fateful year -
http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/articles/2008/08/06/oh_the_humanity/
"African Child Loves His 'World Champion Seahawks' T-Shirt"
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45304
Your Zambia doc makes this world series thing tiny in comparison. The complex economic market structure we've created is mind-boggling. Has anyone sat down and really connected all the dots of this shit? For example, if American clothing manufacturers get tax credits for donating their junk, who;s really footing the bill? Our government, ergo us? I mean, someone somewhere is paying for those shirts being made, and someone, somewhere is making it so that it's cheaper for Africans to import this junk than to make their own clothes, which, ironically, were probably first made not too far from Africa. So if you have tshirts being designed in the US, made in Malaysia, sent to the US, then sent to Africa... and they're still CHEAPER than something made locally... can anyone explain this economic conundrum? Something's not adding up. Is it just subsidies and tax breaks?
A-men brother.
love the apt Buffalo reference
I thought those shirts were transported to an alternate reality where the other team did win the championship.
You're forgetting the initial cost laid out by the company for the un-predictive t-shirts. They may get a tax write-off for donating the shirts, but that only covers a portion of the cost. The rest they just have to eat.
Seems like some folks are up in arms over this. (Donated shirts! How dare they!) Which just proves, I think, that some folks will get up in arms over anything.
Hence all the Namibians under the impression that Dewey beat Truman.
Ha!
i knew about this. i'm still hoping for a gallery of people seen wearing these in other countries. i'd sure love to have a Titans Super Bowl XXXIV Champions shirt
Whiskey tango foxtrot? A Boing Boing post that references a current sporting event? Impossible.
My friend has a 2002 San Francisco Giants World Champions sweatshirt he bought for $2.
That loss still hurts, but I'd take the sweatshirt.
I do a lot of humanitarian work in nicaragua, and i've worked with world vision, or visión del mundo, they're actually really good people. they know their shit. the town i'm from has a pretty big 10K run each year and they make lots of t shirts that people wear for the race and then give away, so most of the people in the Chacraseca region where i work have Cow Harbor Day 10K Run t-shirts.
The cost of producing the shirts in the first place is a line item on the 'costs associated with generating income' side of the ledger, which offsets against any gross profit, reducing overall taxable income. ie the $50k you spent having the shirts made to prepare for a potential win is subtracted from gross profits made that tax year in calculating net income. I'd be curious to hear from someone who understands US corporate tax law if you have to remove the cost of producing the shirts from your 'costs associated with generating income' column if you then turn around and donate the shirts and claim a tax credit for a charitable donation? Or is double-dipping in this way legal?
#6 The answer to that can not be truly understood, unless you are very, very poor
Anyone who has been to China never needs to ask this question. There is losing-team championship victory apparel everywhere; American sportswear is very popular and that's what's around. Strange to hear that it's being donated charitably though, as I've frequently seen it sold.
@6
The reason they can do this in the first place is that the sports championship T-shirts go for $30 a pop (last I saw, anyway, which was a couple years ago; should be more now). That's far, far more than it takes to make two T-shirts.
I read something about this a few years ago. I remember the article pointed out that somewhere in Africa, there's probably a kid who thinks the Bills won four straight Super Bowls.
@Darren Barefoot: It's OK to talk about sports on here as long as the author is not actually interested ("I have heard this is how these things work"). Also, it is preferred that the issue somehow involve the Third World.
While I was in Sierra Leone and Liberia, it was like living in an alternate universe, where all championships went the other way.
Thank you for posting this. I was wondering this, literally, the other day.
Of course the US has no monopoly here. One of my good Brasilian friends gave me a Brasil world-cup victory t-shirt for a year that Brasil lost.
damn i lost
das memsen
The other side of the equation is the huge sums Americans pay for the cheap clothing. That more than balances out the cost of dumping these shirts.
And here is that article.
That's not the one I was thinking of (I think it was on espn.com), but it makes the point.
I think it's great that they donate it. Now we need to start allowing restaurants to donate over-ordered food instead of demanding they throw it out due to legal issues. Everyone is so afraid of a homeless guy getting a stale biscuit and suing that they destroy all the food at the end of the night. Silly.
Anyways, wrote a blog about the merchandise if anyone's interested in hearing a little bit more- http://www.teamschwag.com/2009/11/05/swag-for-the-losing-team/