The Volokh Conspiracy - Somewhere a Third-World Child Will Grow Up

thinking that USC won the Rose Bowl: Slate's Explainer reports:

After the [Rose Bowl], Longhorns players paraded around the field sporting freshly minted championship hats and T-shirts. But what happens to the merchandise that gets printed up for championship game losers? . . .

Two different sets of locker room memorabilia get printed only if a game is a one-shot deal — like the Rose Bowl or the Super Bowl — or if a series is down to the final game. . . .

The fate of the NCAA's locker-room merchandise depends on whether it is in the possession of the manufacturers or the Collegiate Licensing Company, which handles the clothing after it leaves the factory. If the shirts and hats haven't left the manufacturer's plant, they are professionally destroyed. If the CLC has them, they work with a variety of charities to donate them. When USC beat Oklahoma in last year's championship game, the shirts commemorating an OU victory were distributed in Haiti with the assistance of a local church. . . .

But what about the spread of misinformation about sports history? Shameful!

UPDATE: Commenter Ex-Fed writes: "It's heartbreaking to think that there are people out there -- the wretchedly poor, refugees, the dispossessed -- whose reality is even more terrible than one in which USC won."

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Ian (www):

If the shirts and hats haven't left the manufacturer's plant, they are professionally destroyed. If the CLC has them, they work with a variety of charities to donate them.

There's something sick and disgusting about a company which could donate its otherwise useless inventory to the needy (and receive a tax deduction to boot), that instead chooses to destroy that merchandise. It's almost deliberately spiteful.

1.5.2006 3:00pm

Justin (mail):

I actually saw one of those shirts (Va Tech) on a North African Immigrant when I was living in Europe.

1.5.2006 3:11pm

John Jenkins (mail):

Ian, when the manufacturer "destroys" it, what that means is that they reuse it for something else. They can easily strip the dyes out of the material and start over with it.

Once CLC has bought the items, short of a manufacturing defect, they can't really return them, so it makes sense to donate them, since no one would actually buy them, knowing the outcome of the game.

There's nothing sick or disgusting about it.

1.5.2006 3:14pm

18 USC 1030 (mail):

EV missed option three: it gets sold on ebay

This is always fun, I have a Mets victory hate from "beating" the Yankees in the World Series subway series.

1.5.2006 3:25pm

Ex-Fed (mail) (www):

It's heartbreaking to think that there are people out there -- the wretchedly poor, refugees, the dispossessed -- whose reality is even more terrible than one in which USC won.

1.5.2006 3:49pm

JohnAnnArbor:

Wonder if the USC shirts on eBay were stolen.

1.5.2006 3:52pm

John B. (mail):

I worked at JCPenny in law school. One year for our huge Nov. sale we got a large shipment of $1 tee shirts. They were for the Buffalo Bills winning the superbowl in 1993.

1.5.2006 3:58pm

If you think a reality in which USC won would be bad, try living with Texas fans for the next 12 months.

1.5.2006 4:23pm

Nobody Special:

Any world where USC loses something is a better world for it.

I think we forget that.

1.5.2006 4:26pm

VY for Pres:

I have spent the past 15 years dreaming of collecting losers' championship gear. Now I know that all I have to do is move to impoverished countries. Or become a better eBayer.

1.5.2006 4:35pm

Shelby (mail):

I have a Mets victory hate

Yeah, that's why I could never be a Mets fan...

1.5.2006 4:36pm

Hanah Volokh (mail) (www):

I've always thought they should write "NOT!!!" across them in big letters and sell them in the winner's city. But maybe that could cause riots.

1.5.2006 5:16pm

haha thanks Shelby that was supposed to be hat.....

1.5.2006 5:37pm

btorrez (mail):

This phenomena does not explain all of the Cubs gear one sees all over the place.

1.5.2006 6:08pm

SomeJarhead (mail):

wretchedly poor, refugees, the dispossessed

you mean the victims of radical left-wing governments in the darkest corners of the world, right?

1.5.2006 8:31pm

honeybadger (mail):

Speaking as someone who couldn't even tell you who played in the Superbowl, much less won it, I fail to see what the fuss is about. A new shirt is a new shirt: if you don't follow football or speak English, it's just another colorful design.

Maybe they need to start a program to donate them to out-of-it ivory tower academics.

1.6.2006 3:56am

gab (mail):

It's third world thinking that 'sc was even playing for a third national championship. They were actually playing for a second, LSU having won it two years ago.

1.6.2006 12:46pm

CB from the other LA:

Speaking of spreading of misinformation and sports history revisionism...

It's heartbreaking to think that there are people out there that think that USC won the previous two national championships.

1.6.2006 2:31pm