For every big sporting event, like the Super Bowl and the NCAA championship, both teams have their championship t-shirts and hats and such printed up in advance so they can haul them out immediately after their victory. But what happens to the championship gear for the losing team? Turns out they're giving them to the impoverished in the third world. That's great for them, they get clothing they badly need. But it's kinda weird that we're creating little alternate realities all around the world. Millions of children around the world will grow up thinking that the Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2008, that Ohio State won the last two BCS championships and that Lebron James won his first NBA title in 2007.
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Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media.(static)
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« Okay, Buttars Wins | Main | OMG! Obama is a Fascist! »
I Always Wondered Where Those Things Went
Category:
Posted on: February 18, 2008 9:16 AM, by Ed Brayton
Comments
I myself have participated in this, sort of. Those of us doing research in the "third world" often hook up with some way to obtain new t-shirts that have minor printing flaws, or to get some company to give us 50 hats, or whatever,then bring them along for people we are working with. Once, a company named "Canonie" (I have no idea what it was) gave us the hats, and the workers (mostly off duty school teachers) working on the excavation made up extensive origin myths and songs that went with the hats. Just for fun.
But I had never thought about this particular issue of the alternative realities. That is fascinating. Historians of the future will be very confused....
Posted by: Greg Laden | February 18, 2008 9:55 AM
My son told me about this a couple years ago. He is amused that the 3rd world wardrobe is dominated by "World Champion Buffalo Bills" T-shirts.
That's not what will be the most confusing to post apocalyptic archaeologists, however. The only man made item to survive will be those little orange and yellow Little Tykes cars, which are indestructible. Imagine what strange hypotheses of Flintstonian transport in ancient civilizations they will inspire.
Posted by: heddle | February 18, 2008 10:03 AM
I would tend to think that these "alternate" realities you talk about will be as relevent as a whole bunch of rural Southerners getting shirts from Manchester United. Even if they know what the shirts refer to, it's unlikely to have any real meaning. And in ten years, I'm not all that likely to remember whether it was New England or New York who won SuperBowl 42, nor will I care.
Posted by: Shawn Smith | February 18, 2008 10:20 AM
You got this from the Sports Guy, didn't you?
Posted by: FishyFred | February 18, 2008 10:58 AM
A buddy of mine would be thrilled to have a Stanley Cup Championship 2007 tshirt with Ottawa Senators logo on it!
Posted by: sinned34 | February 18, 2008 11:18 AM
I live here in Columbus and as far as irrational,rabid Buckeye fans are concerned, OSU did win the last 2 BCS Championships!:-)
Posted by: Jocelyn | February 18, 2008 1:11 PM
It's nice to know that somewhere there is a t-shirt that says my Broncos didn't get the ever loving shit kicked out of them by the San Francisco 49s.
Posted by: soboco | February 18, 2008 5:43 PM
I always wondered about this, too. Thanks for putting my mind at ease.
And I'm kinda surprised that these things don't show up on eBay. I'd think they'd be collector's items. Like the Inverted Jenny, or the "Dewey Defeats Truman" newspapers.
Posted by: Greta Christina | February 19, 2008 1:39 PM
Greta: there's probably too many of them to be worth bidding for; and people with both money and Internet access would not want T-shirts that represented obvious falsehoods. (Of course, this might change in fifty or more years.) We might as well expect them to bid for Larouchie literature, Children of God pamphlets, or creationist textbooks that had been rejected by US school districts.
Posted by: Raging Bee | February 20, 2008 12:42 AM
Posted by: Bob O'H | February 20, 2008 2:19 AM
It always amuses me that in our little corner of the world in these ultimately insignificant sporting events, we can declare this team or that team to be "World Champions" when no one else in the rest of the world competed, and in the majority of cases don't really even care about the result of the particular game in question.
Posted by: Ian | February 20, 2008 9:15 AM
Do they also wear Paris 2012 shirts?
Posted by: Suricou Raven | March 13, 2008 7:42 PM