The Dirty Truth of Sports Fan Merchandise

This March, we’re riding the wave of spring sports like baseball’s spring training and college basketball’s March Madness and delving into some of the consumerism that comes along with society’s love of sports. We certainly don’t want to come off sounding as though we don’t see a benefit to playing and watching sports. The health benefits, the social interactions and the sense of community bonding are all positive things that come from either participating in or spectating sports. However, as with anything that grows in size and scope, a huge consumer element and in some cases an environmentally detrimental element have found their way into the world of sports. Today, we’ll take a look at the most obvious instance of this – the commodification and the consumer industry built around sports fan merchandise.

Look Anywhere, You’ll See It

You don’t need to be a sports fan yourself to see the extreme merchandise relationship between sports and revenue. Just walk around any city or town that has a college or professional sports team of any kind. Or watch a game on television and take a look at the number of jerseys, sweatshirts, caps, hats and other gear in the audience. Or, simply visit any of the websites for any pro or college team and see how big the online store section is. It’s massive – and even trickles down to high school athletics as well. And this isn’t limited to America, though we concede that anything consumer-related is often a stronger presence in America. It’s global since just about every country or region of the world has a regional sport and therefore regional sports stars. It’s easy to not notice how much merchandise and consumer frenzy is built up around a sports team because it’s such a pervasive part of our culture, but if you stop and pay attention for a moment you’ll almost be overwhelmed by it.

What Sports Franchises and Organizations are Banking On

We think that being a fan of a team is a great thing. But we have that opinion because (within reason) it gives you something to be passionate about that isn’t related to stuff. What the companies and organizations that manufacture and sell sports team merchandise are relying on, however, is that you’ve bought into the consumer media’s message of equating passion, emotion and satisfaction with physical objects. That means that in order to “fill up” the parts of you that are passionate about your team, you’ll need to buy stuff. And more stuff. And more stuff. It’s impossible to “fill up” or get satisfied this way. We don’t think that it’s unreasonable to want to own some shirts and other fan apparel to show off your pride and passion. Frankly we think that’s healthy. However, if you only need a shirt and a yard sign to support your team, you’re not the consumer that sports merchandise marketers are targeting. Sports merchandise marketers want you to believe that true fans have entire rooms and even houses full of nothing but team merchandise. If it can be team logo branded, it will be. And you will feel like you need it because supposedly stuff = love, and you love your team. Or at least that’s the philosophy that sports teams, individual players and sports marketing companies want you to adopt.

How Sports Merchandise Marketers and Organizations Create a Sense of Need

But you may be thinking that there are only so many jerseys, hats or other types of sports merchandise that you could ever need. Don’t worry, sports merchandise marketers have thought of that, too! Even if you take out of the equation the factor of new players and stars being transferred to a team, have you ever wondered why teams redesign their uniforms or have special, single-occasion uniforms? It’s because consumer-centric fans will then want to purchase those uniforms so that they, at all points, have a complete collection. Because it’s true that the consumer media also instills the feeling that you are not a true fan if you do not have the rarest and most limited edition merchandise or, alternatively, the most up-to-date merchandise. This coordination between sports franchises, colleges and marketers isn’t unintentional. It’s entirely grounded in the idea that more merchandise means more revenue.

And How Much Revenue is That?

How much revenue is in play? The complete number when you factor in all levels of teams isn’t easy to navigate (what counts as sports merchandise versus high school spirit, for example). However, here are some numbers to put things in perspective for you. In 2010, the National Football League (NFL) made $2.1 billion dollars from merchandise sales. And while the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball don’t release revenue numbers, both have seen revenue from merchandise sales increase by more than 10% a year in the last several years. And you don’t need to look far to know that merchandise sales for college athletics account for huge numbers, as indicated by the recent lawsuits from college players to be allowed to unionize and be compensated for merchandise with their names or numbers on it. Even if you factored out all of the sports that don’t reveal their merchandise numbers (and shame on them for hiding their consumer motives), we’re still talking about a bottom amount of more than $2.1 billion dollars.

What Can You Do?

Simply know that knowledge is power. As we mentioned earlier, we don’t think that there’s anything wrong with wanting to own some memorabilia or fan gear from a team that you’re passionate about. But before you go down the road of thinking that you need to own every piece of gear, think about what that’s really accomplishing. Does it really make you a better fan if you own a dozen jerseys instead of just one? Do you feel more like a part of a team because your license plate is framed in a sports-team holder? Are you happier because you own more team items, or is the happiness that you derive from your fandom related to something other than “stuff” (we like to think that we already know the answer to that). Once you truly evaluate why you’re buying so many team items and whether you truly need to do that, we think you’ll be able to step back and make better consumer decisions.

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