Bonus Episode: Our Favorite Sports Merch

Matt Parisi

Matt Parisi

Distributor Account Advisor

Gabe Gotay

Gabe Gotay

Senior Marketing Coordinator

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GABE GOTAY

Hello everyone and welcome to a bonus episode of Promo Perspectives. I am back here with Matt Parisi. 

MATT PARISI

I’m Matt Parisi, Distributor Account Advisor here at SAGE. Happy to be here. 

GABE GOTAY

Yeah! we’re going to talk more about sports promo, and this time around, we’re just going to talk a little more personally about our experience with it. A little bit less about breaking into the business side of things.

Right off the bat, you know, I was wearing my hockey jersey in here today, and we were just talking about how it’s a little chilly here in our new office. I was at a preseason game last weekend, watching the Avs, and uh, I didn’t know when I flew to Denver that I was going to be going to a game while I was there, and so I didn’t bring anything, and I was kind of chilly because, you know, the hockey rink in those arenas. And I was like, “This is actually an excellent sales tactic to sell essentially a sweater as your most expensive piece of merch in a cold arena.”

MATT PARISI

Oh yeah, absolutely. They like to keep those things chilly for sure. And and yeah, um, you’d be surprised a number of people that end up buying extra layers when they’re already there at the stadium. 

GABE GOTAY

So okay, we talked, we just kind of barely touched on because you brought a couple of like alternative jerseys to wear today. Uh, do you have other alternative jerseys? Do you tend to seek out alternative jerseys to the standard home/away jerseys?

MATT PARISI

Typically yes, um, just because a lot of times those are like limited runs um that aren’t going to be available after you see them that one time. Um, so I think something like that it’s it’s just a unique item that not a lot of other people are going to have. So that’s something that stands out to me in particular. Um, but not to say that I don’t have other, you know, standard jerseys or um merch from from the different teams that I support. Um, but yeah, I definitely think some alternate type of gear is is always really cool. 

GABE GOTAY

Yeah, I I love to seek it out. And almost all of my examples are going to come from hockey because in all honesty, it’s the only sport that I really follow.

MATT PARISI

That’s fair, 

GABE GOTAY

But they have all kinds of alternative jerseys, and they’ve kind of manufactured reasons to have them, which, you know, you can be cynical and say, “Oh, they’re trying to sell more stuff.” But hey, we’re this industry, we are trying to sell more stuff. Uh, 

MATT PARISI

right. 

GABE GOTAY

So for hockey, they have the Winter Classic Series games, which it used to just be one, and now there’s at least two of those games if not more every season, and they’re outdoor, so that makes it a special event. Um, but they also come up with like a Winter Classic jersey for whatever teams are going to participate in it. And the Dallas Stars have one of the best-looking alternate jerseys I’ve ever seen with that Winter Classic.

MATT PARISI

Oh yeah, it’s very, very clean-looking. Um, I remember when that it got announced they were going to play in that. That was what a couple of years ago, I think, um, that that first got announced and my roommate at the time when I was still living here in Dallas, yeah, he freaked out over them, and he he bought one the day that they became available. Um, they were that popular. So yeah, I I couldn’t agree more. 

GABE GOTAY

Now I will say it doesn’t always come out to be the best. Dallas has had basically all winners with the most of their jersey designs, but I’m from Colorado, so my team is the Avalanche, and I hate to say it, but the Avalanche Winter Classic jerseys I I hate them. They look, they were going, and they’re Winter Classic, so they’re trying to herald back to their origins and they tried to design it off of the Quebec Nordiques logo, but it looks, I think that little “N” with the hockey puck just looks like a cartoon elephant, and they’ve got the fleur de lis all over like the waist of it. It looks like a court jester smock or something, man, I don’t know.

MATT PARISI

Yeah, yeah, sometimes um, you know, the the alternate jersey yeah does not look the best. Um, I know with the MLB, they’ve done um MLB and NBA I believe they use the same nomenclature, they call them City Connect jerseys um is is their kind of alternate that they’ve done at least the last several seasons. Um, there’s a few MLB teams I can think of for sure. I know um the the Padres City Connect are kind of some interesting colors. They’ve got some hot pink and some green and blue in there, which is nothing to do with their normal colors. Um, they’re typically brown and yellow, um, so a lot of their fans I know were not super happy with that. Um, but I think that’s kind of the cool thing about the alternate jerseys too, right? Is that um, you know, it is a limited run, and the next year it’s probably going to be something completely different from the current year’s City Connect Jersey. Um, so gives them the opportunity to try out different things if the fans don’t absolutely love it. Um, and then, you know, figure out something that is is really cool and memorable.

GABE GOTAY

Yeah, or like uh, you know, when it comes just like they can be more creative because that limited use case, it’s kind of like the I assume other sports do it too, but sometimes during warm-ups at hockey games, they will wear a different jersey that’s like a camo jersey on Veterans Day or or a pink jersey uh for in support of cancer research and things like that, and those are cool. You can, they’re never going to be worn on the ice during a game, but the players are there modeling them out, and it’s a cool piece of merch to support like interesting causes for the fans while they’re there too.

MATT PARISI

Yeah, I I totally agree. Um, I think yeah, like you said, the the warm-ups um whatever the team happens to wear, I know a lot of times yeah, it’s not even a jersey, it’s some sort of, you know, jacket or like long sleeve shirt that they’re wearing um during warm-ups, whether it be a hockey game, you know, basketball game, football game um, and a lot of times they are, you know, a little bit different than the jersey that they would wear. They’ve got some other sort of slogan or they are supporting some sort of cause. Um, and then similarly to that, um, I know this past year, they did like a Veterans Memorial basketball game, college basketball game, where they played on an aircraft carrier, which was pretty cool. I can’t remember the two teams that played for the life of me, but they had unique jerseys just for that one game um, and those were were really cool and were made available to the public to purchase as well.

GABE GOTAY

That is so cool. I uh, so when you you talking a minute ago about some of these like maybe not bad per se but like interesting choice, bright colors, maybe something that you might not want to choose to wear for a style reason, but that kind of brings up a question I wanted to ask you, which is how often, if ever, are you buying merch with no intention to actually wear it?

MATT PARISI

Hm, that’s a good question. Um, I would say myself personally, I am almost always going to wear whatever merch that I do buy. I did purchase a jersey not too long ago that it was a signed jersey of a Cowboys player. Um, I won’t name names, but um, I did purchase that, and I have no intentions of wearing that ever. Um, I’m going to get it framed, and it’s just going to be a collector’s item for me. Um, so I do know there’s a lot of people that purchase, you know, apparel and memorabilia just for that reason, um, for something to hang on to versus something they’re ever going to wear or use going forward. So um, but me myself personally, um, I would say 99% of the time it’s going to be something that I’m going to wear.

GABE GOTAY

I’m in that same exact boat because I do understand the collector’s aspect of it, and it might just be that at the point of life that you and I are in right now, we just don’t have the disposable income to create a large collection of stuff that we’re never going to do anything but look at, right? Uh, versus like the the stuff that you actually wear, it’s functional, not only does it keep you warm at a cold hockey game, but like wearing, getting, if you’re like, say, taking public transportation to go watch a game, and you’re on that train with everybody else wearing that jersey, that’s kind of sense of camaraderie and like, “Oh, who you have that Patrick Roy from back in the 90s, that’s such a cool jersey,” or even the brand new ones like I’m wearing the one I’m wearing today is from the biggest player on the team right now, from Nathan McKinnon, and there was a part of me when I got that jersey, I’m like, “Should I, you know, keep it nice and pristine and not never wear it?” But I’m like, “No, I’ve got this so that that I can show my fandom.”

MATT PARISI

Right, right, I I totally agree, and that’s how it is for me too. Like I I buy those things so that I can rep the team and and wear it out so people can see me in public supporting that team for sure. Um, it’s definitely not something just for me to to sit at home and look at myself. Maybe down the road a little bit like you said, when I’ve got a bit more income to to throw around at things like that, but definitely not right now.

GABE GOTAY

I noticed an odd behavior in myself where I have that philosophy with my expensive merch, like you, hats and jerseys, and things that cost anywhere from $30 to $100, right? But for some reason, I was weirdly more protective of the cheap freebies, like you go to a playoff game, and you’ll get like a little glowing wristband or like a towel that you’re supposed to wave whenever they get a goal or something, and I remember my roommates and I, we went to one of the playoff games, and we got these Dallas Stars like they’re like little rags, and they you’re supposed to wave around, and for whatever reason, we treated these things like they were sacred. Like we we would never hang them up as the dish towel, we wouldn’t use them to dust. I don’t know what we ever thought we were going to use them for, and it wasn’t until now, like four years later, when I’m just like, “I need a rag to dry these dishes, and I’m going to grab this Stars one because I’m not going to need this in 30 years.” But I think that just speaks kind of the power of promo, right? Where 

MATT PARISI

Absolutely 

GABE GOTAY

It’s one thing when I buy myself a thing, and I choose how to use it, but the rag, the the rag was a gift, it was a freebie, it was a memorable, you know…

MATT PARISI

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I think something very similar to that, um, at least at least, you know, in the Baseball World, you see it a lot. Um, bobbleheads is a is a unique collector’s item, and a lot of the time, something they give away for free um, to you know, the certain number of fans that show up to this specific game early or something like that. Um, for me, I don’t have a ton of them um because I haven’t been a fan for for long enough yet, but I do know a guy, another distributor in our industry actually down there in Houston, um, who’s got a whole collection. He has every single bobblehead that the Astros have released for the last 30 years, which is pretty incredible. Um, but you know, something like that, it’s really an inexpensive item um, but something that he holds very near and dear to his heart um, and he’s got all of them in display at his house right now, which is pretty incredible.

GABE GOTAY

So we talked about you’re a season passholder for the Astros. How long have you been a big baseball fan?

MATT PARISI

So honestly, um, I’ve only been a Major League Baseball fan until I went to college down at Texas A&M. Again, I didn’t have any pro sports back back home in Arkansas. Um, and I was fortunate that when when I started my career at A&M, um, the Astros were kind of on the rise of their Dynasty and then ended up going to the World Series and winning a World Series while I was in school there. Um, so I would say, you know, it’s been eight or so years really since since I started following the Astros. Eight to ten years, I would say.

GABE GOTAY

Not something you were huge into as a younger kid?

MATT PARISI

No, not not at all. I mean, I love playing the sport of baseball for sure. Um, but yeah, just didn’t follow any professional teams at all. Um, only the Razorbacks, going to Razorback games on the weekends was a big part of my childhood life for sure.

GABE GOTAY

I actually can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up in a state with no major league teams.

MATT PARISI

It’s it’s definitely different um, from at least a lot of the childhood experiences of my friends that I’ve spoken with. Um, but at the same time, I I think it’s kind of cool um because everyone is a fan of the the same team. Um, you’ll drive around, you know, not just in Northwest Arkansas or around the city of Fayetteville where the school is actually located, but you go down into Little Rock or Northeast Arkansas up in the Jonesboro area. If you go drive around any of those neighborhoods, every other house or every third house is going to have some sort of Razorback memorabilia in their front yard, you know, a flag, a little sign, their little mailbox arm is going to be a Razorback, something like that. So everyone’s all a fan of the same team. Um, you know, across the different sports that they offer there at the University. So I think it is a while it’s weird, it is it’s kind of has its own Pros to it as well. Um, since everyone, you know, again, is is kind of together in the same aspect.

GABE GOTAY

Well, and I also, while it brings people together, I also imagine it kind of widens the disparity of who what major league teams your peers and you are all cheering for. Like you grow up in Denver or in Dallas, sure, you’re going to have some friends that don’t root for the home team, but those are going to be the outliers. I assume in Arkansas, it’s a bigger mix of what pro teams they’re actually rooting for.

MATT PARISI

Oh yeah, absolutely. Um, as a kid, I mean, I did follow a little bit of NFL when I was in high school. Um, and I was raised as a Cowboys fan just because of my uncles and my parents also spent a bit of time in Dallas before I was born. Um, but you know, I had friends that were Kansas City Chiefs fans. Um, back when the Rams were still the St. Louis Rams, I knew people that were fans of them. Um, even people that were fans of the Saints with Louisiana being, you know, just south of the state of Arkansas. So yeah, definitely a mix of of different fandoms. Um, which is super, super interesting, but it’s it’s cool because then you get to talk to those people about why they’re a fan of of who they are. Um, and so it’s cool to see other people’s backgrounds and and what made them a fan of that team.

GABE GOTAY

It is. I love finding that out about somebody because the answer can range from something really serious and and sentimental, like “my grandfather used to take me to those games when I would go visit him over the summer, and it was a big part of our bonding …,” all the way down to like, “I had a friend in high school who liked the opposite team, so I picked the New York Giants, and now I’ve cheered for them ever since.”

MATT PARISI

Right, like exactly. Yeah, it’s it’s super interesting. Um, and one of my good buddies from college, he’s born and raised in San Francisco. Um, so grew up there, so he is, you know, that’s where he’s from. But funnily enough, um, a lot of people don’t like him because he’s a Yankees fan, and he’s a Cowboys fan, and he’s a Golden State Warriors fan back when they were really good. So he kind of hit the trifecta

GABE GOTAY

Spanning the … coast to coast!

MATT PARISI

Yeah, coast to coast, and um, it’s people like to make fun of him a lot because, you know, it’s kind of like he’s a bandwagon fan because all of those teams are really big and and popular obviously. Um, but you talk to him, and he’s got a legitimate reason for why he’s a fan of all of those teams. So um, it’s just interesting, like you said, to to hear, you know, that background.

GABE GOTAY

Well, and another kind of up-and-coming way to look at the promo side of things is in some of these markets that don’t have major teams yet because the sports market’s only growing. Like at the only time the sports market didn’t grow significantly basically in the last 100 years was COVID, and even then they recovered really well. And so with this growth, you’re starting to see like expansion teams or relocated teams moving into new markets. Uh, the NHL’s had a lot of that in the just recent history. They had it was first it was Vegas, the the Golden Knights, that was an expansion team, and then Seattle, the Kraken, that was an expansion team, and now this year, it’s not really an expansion, it’s kind of complicated the way they worked it out, but the Arizona club moved to Utah. And so with all of these, there’s always all kinds of new merch, like when the when the Vegas team was announced and when the Seattle team was announced, they were able to drum up a lot of press and media talking about what’s the team going to be called, what’s their branding going to look like, when can I get merch? Uh, and the Utah team for the NHL did something I haven’t seen before where they have a temporary, I guess, you know, I think I’ve seen it once in the NFL, but they have temporary branding for their inaugural season where they haven’t named themselves, they don’t have a mascot, so they have jerseys that these players are wearing and that fans can buy that just say “Utah,” and they’re going to be different next year. So they’re kind of immediately creating a collector’s item.

MATT PARISI

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I think that situation is super unique and of itself. Um, with how that move was handled, number one, but like you said, you know, kind of having that weird temporary branding name. Um, yeah, there was a very similar situation in the NFL when um, the Washington, formerly known as Redskins, were in the process of rebranding themselves. Um, and they just called themselves the Washington Football Team for a season. Um, so having, you know, a piece of merch that just says “Washington Football Team” is going to be very unique because it was only offered for such a short period of time. Um, and when you talk about teams, you know, relocating, um, is a is a big thing right now. Um, a lot of these California teams, you know, we just lost the Oakland Raiders just moved to Las Vegas. The Oakland Athletics are about to move to Las Vegas as well. Um, so not only are you creating a new market for promo in that new city, but then all of the fans from the old city, you know, now, like you said, they’ve got kind of a collector’s item because it’s no longer going to be the Oakland Raiders or the Oakland A’s. Instead, it’ll say “Las Vegas” there. So kind of having that that piece of history I think is is really cool um and then yeah you know getting into the new the new market is just a lot of opportunity for promo in our industry.

GABE GOTAY

It is kind of cool to watch your merch become history too over time. Like you said, and I’m the same way, we wear our merch, we don’t get it to store it for a hundred years. But, I went to see some family out in Tampa and I went to a Bucks-Broncos game. You know, being from Denver that was super cool for me, and I had an old hand-me-down, a John Elway jersey that I had for you know, 20 something years, that I got to wear to that game. And it’s like, this isn’t a collector’s item, it’s not something that was hanging in a special spot in the closet, it’s well used, but it still has like this air of importance and history to it, especially when you walk around the stadium and everybody’s like slapping your shoulder or calling you out. “Oh, hey da da da da da!” it’s one thing to like have the current team, but to be able to show off like the history you have with a sport is really cool too.

MATT PARISI

Yeah I totally agree. Something historical for me, um, I know my parents still have somewhere in their house, I think I know where it is still, but back when the Arkansas Razorbacks men’s basketball team won the national championship in 1994, they sold commemorative Coke bottles. So they had a six-pack of glass Coke bottles, which is very difficult to find these days, and they’re branded with Arkansas Razorbacks 1994 men’s basketball champions, which is super cool. You know, that’s a piece of history that we definitely would want to hang on to.

But yeah, it’s really unique to see that. 

GABE GOTAY

And it’s interesting too when it is uh food or beverage because it is collectible, but at least like with an old jersey you can still wear that old jersey. I got to imagine even though you wouldn’t want to because it’s collectible at some point, you’re not going to want to open that bottle of Coke, right? 

MATT PARISI

It’s highly unlikely. Um, I honestly don’t know the shelf life of a bottle of Coca-Cola that was manufactured in 1994, but I would be curious to see what that uh smelled like for sure.

GABE GOTAY

It’s like this isn’t sports, but I remember seeing sometime in the last couple of years people were selling on eBay because there was the new Ghostbusters movies got made, and people had from like the 80s and 90s those Ecto Cooler Hi-Cs, and it’s like, and there’s also like the nostalgia, I remember trying that and I remember seeing somebody who tried it and was just like, “Shouldn’t have done that. That should have stayed a collector’s item.” 

MATT PARISI

Exactly, yeah, I think it would probably be a bad idea to actually ingest any of that stuff, but um, yeah, definitely unique for sure.

GABE GOTAY

Well, um, before we kind of wrap up, uh, first of all, thank you again for coming on the main episode and the bonus episode. You’ve had a lot to contribute. Anything you want to add, any fun stories, a cool piece of merch, an ugly piece of merch, is something that sticks out to you, man?

MATT PARISI

Nothing that that really comes to mind for me. I guess something like funny or, you know, an awful piece of merch um, that I’ve seen, I do remember when I was a kid, um, we did get a baseball jersey that was just one of the worst things I have ever seen in my life. The colors were bad, the branding on it was bad. And I think it was one of those things you know where they had partnered with a local business or whatever, so they wanted to use those those brand colors and have their logo and stuff on there, but it just didn’t look right on the jersey. Um, and none of the boys on the on the team wanted to wear it, but we had to because that’s you know, the only thing that was available to us. Um, and I remember some of the kids even would show up to the games and just have a t-shirt on that was close to the color of the jersey that we had because they didn’t want to wear it.

So it’s, they are both good and bad that can that can come out of that side of things. 

GABE GOTAY

I think that’s so funny, especially at that level because you know, it’s a little less uh, creativity that goes or maybe just less creative control that goes into really maintaining the quality of these things, right? It’s kind of like you ever go if you ever shop for clothes at a thrift store and you see a lot of those like old donated t-shirts and jerseys from intramural or little league things you just think “who’s whose idea was this? Who said okay I’m going to spend money to order 72 of these jerseys?” 

MATT PARISI

Exactly yeah that’s the the funny part to me and even with the you know the MLB jerseys that we talk about that don’t look great I it just makes me laugh because it’s that has to have gone through several levels of approval right it’s not like there’s just one person that’s running the show and is the dictator about you know these jerseys that are going to get released so um it’s just funny to me to see that there had to have been several people that signed off on this and it still made it to to market um and where the the general public is definitely in disagreement with whoever the decision makers were um yeah it’s just funny to see that 

GABE GOTAY

Well that’s just another tip for our Distributors remember you are the uh consultant for these people you know put put your two cents in but you know don’t don’t stop them from ordering the jerseys uh 

MATT PARISI

Exactly you never want to shy away from from an order but um definitely a good idea to maybe give them some some wisdom um before they they move forward with what they’re working on.

GABE GOTAY

All right well thanks again Matt and thanks everyone for listening head to sor.com to register for the next live stream and we’ll see you there here