![]() ![]() Wakefield traces the true proliferation of the trend back to the Oklahoma City Thunder. When fans wear those shirts throughout the rest of the year, the brand story lives on.” “Whenever they recall and recount the experience, the brand is part of the story. “Since the sponsor’s brand is on (the back) of every shirt, the connection between the passion the fans have for the team transfers to the brand sponsor because it becomes part of their stories,” Kirk Wakefield, a professor of retail marketing at Baylor University, wrote in an email. But that doesn’t mean that the marketing ploy was a failure. (One exception to this rule was Justin Bieber, the Canadian chanteuse, who was booed when he appeared onscreen in Cleveland last week even though he had put on the free Cavaliers shirt.)ĭespite the glitter of about 20,000 gold shirts on Sunday, the Golden State Warriors did not prevail in their winner-take-all home game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. But as John Branch of The New York Times noted last year, fans who fail to conform frequently end up on the Jumbotron before the game, where they are vigorously booed by fellow fans in act of public shaming. They’re often ill-sized and frequently bedecked with the logo of the corporate sponsor that picked up the tab for that game’s giveaway. Of course, fans aren’t actually required to wear the shirts, which are, inherently, a little bit uncool. Apparel giveaways have long existed in pro sports-who can forget the Terrible Towel?-but in recent years, the stands of many high-stakes NBA games have become uniform affairs, yielding the appearance of near-total fan fealty. ![]() On Sunday afternoon, before the greatest finish to an NBA Finals commenced in Oakland, hundreds of volunteers roamed the aisles at Oracle Arena in what’s essentially become a de rigueur ritual at playoff games: the lining of fan seats with free t-shirts. ![]()
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