Inside the Logistics of Game Day, London, and the Super Bowl

Before Everything is Logistics, I spent years covering the Jacksonville Jaguars for a local station. Football has always been more than a game to me. It is one of the clearest examples of how much work happens before the public sees the finished product.

In this replay, I trace the city effort that brought the Jaguars to Jacksonville, then step inside the operations behind game day. Food and field prep, broadcast timing, sideline technology, international travel, and hundreds of people working from a plan the crowd will never see.

I also follow championship merchandise from the stadium to fans, then to its next destination when a team does not win. It is a football episode, but the logistics are the part I have always loved.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:37

Welcome into another episode of Everything is Logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in Freight. We are proudly presented by SPI Logistics, and I am your host, Blythe Brumleave. And in this episode, I'm going to be talking about the logistics of football season because it turns out the logistics of getting a football team to begin with has a lot to do with global trade. You see, in our Jaxport video that we posted probably about a year ago, I'll link to it in the show notes. Trade was established in Northeast Florida region as early as the 1500s. Yes, that is a real stat. Northeast Florida trade was established around the 1500s. It makes Jaxport one of the oldest ports in the entire country. Go look it up. I'll link to it in the show notes just so you can fact check me. But yes, that is a real uh stat. Um, but it was because of this trade activity that led to the official establishment of what we know as Jacksport being formed. This was done in the 60s, and so that would make for the eventual case for the city to be awarded an NFL team with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1995. So took a little while, 1500s to uh 1995, but City of Jacksonville made it happen. And this is what happens when a city is formed in a trade hub, that a trade hub can lead to more economic opportunity, as such as being one of those 32 teams that are awarded an NFL team, or one of those 32 cities that are awarded an NFL team. But what happens after a city gets a team? How does the logistics of game day or an entire football season work? What about if your team does the imaginable and wins a championship or the unthinkable and loses? What happens to all of that merchandise? So in this episode, we're going to be covering it all by collecting previous segments of older episodes to kind of put them all together in one nice package so you can go into football season knowing way more than all of your friends when it comes to football season trivia, maybe even win you a couple different trivia contests, or you know, play one of those games where a did you know fact at one of your future watch parties. Anyways, everybody can know player stats and things like that. I just think that this is really interesting to be able to tie football and economic prosperity and logistics all together in one. So in this episode, we're gonna be pulling together three clips. And the first one is going to be the logistics of getting a football team. And in the next clip, we're gonna be talking about the logistics of the NFL season. So uh game day operations, traveling to London, things like that. And then we're gonna end it with the logistics of championship merchandise, both for the winners and for the losers. So hope y'all enjoy this kickoff to football season. Want to talk about the logistics of getting a football team. And for me, I was I was nine years old when we got the Jaguars. And so I know, you know, I have a pretty good memory of what happened after the city was awarded the team. But the how it happened to get the football team to begin with was something that I wanted to talk about today because it was one that I think, you know, a lot of different decisions um went into this. A lot of different chess pieces were involved in this process. And it's really a sort of a fascinating deep dive into what it takes to get an NFL team to a city. Because especially for, you know, a small market like Jacksonville, you have a group of people that have spent decades, decades trying to get a team to town. A lot of people think it was a fly-by-night decision by the NFL in order to award an NFL team to the city of Jacksonville, but it was not. It was years and years of relationship building of between a particular group within the Jacksonville community. And it took a lot of, you know, inferiority complexes, feeling like the NFL is absolutely going to say no to us, also dealing with outsiders, telling you, trying to reaffirm those same fears that you have about yourself, but then also, you know, having that confidence to say, no, we actually can do this because we have a history of doing it. And so let's talk about what that process looks like. Because you can't just call up the NFL and say, hey, I want a team, because otherwise every city in the country would be doing that and likely, probably has tried at some point. So as a city, you almost have to, and this is based on the video that I was watching. It's called Destiny. Um, it's about the Jacksonville Jaguars and how the city landed the team. It's over on YouTube. I have it linked in the show notes. It's a fabulous, it's about an hour-long documentary about that process. And so a lot of these video clips that you're gonna see today come from that. And it if we set sort of the ground level, the ground level was really about mayor uh Jake Godbold. He was the facilitator. He had this grand vision of bringing a team to Jacksonville. And so you kind of have to have this come to Jesus moment where you say, okay, well, where do I want to go? Where do I want to take this city? But also where have we been? So back in the late 70s and the early 80s, Jacks was really looking for an identity. There were no pro sports team, but we did host the Gator Bowl. We have hosted the Gator Bowl, which is the annual matchup between the Florida Gators and the Georgia Bulldogs. So we've hosted that game every year since 1933, almost every year since 1933. There were a couple of years in there as, you know, the stadium is getting, you know, uh redeveloped or, you know, a new stadium is being constructed. Those were the few years that we did not host the Florida Georgia game. But we also had a USFL stint in 1984, where the briefly the USFL was uh a thing in the United States, not anymore, but we did have a USFL team. So that was really laying the ground level in order to be able to say, hey, we have a football culture here in town. We're ready for that next step of getting an NFL team here. So then the city of Jacksonville, what they started doing is they started flirting with other teams. One of those teams, Baltimore, now the Indianapolis Colts, they were once the Baltimore Colts, in 1979, 50,000 Jacks residents showed up to the Gator Bowl to greet Bob Ursay, who was considering leaving Baltimore. So Jaguars were old, or that Jacksonville was old, uh was actively flirting with other teams to try to get them to bring their team to our city. Bob Ursay actually famously landed a helicopter in the middle of the once Gator Bowl where all of those 50,000 fans were at, which is really sort of uh interesting to see fans holding up signs that's saying Jack's once the Colts, which is now, you know, present-day division rival of the Jaguars, but they once tried to steal away the Baltimore Colts. The Colts would, of course, you know, pack up in the middle of the night and controversially leave to go over to Indianapolis. Ultimately, that is where they have been ever since. There is another team that we've tried to woo away, and a lot of the Titans fans don't know this, but Jacks also tried to woo away the Houston Oilers. The Houston Oilers would eventually move to Nashville and become the Tennessee Titans and eventually become the arch rival of the Jaguars. There are a lot of uh Freightways production staff that are hating the show today because they are all located in Tennessee. And so they are Jaguars or they are not Jaguars fans, they are Jaguars haters, but not as much, I think, as Jaguars hate Titans fans. I think it's kind of one-sided with how many Jaguars fans actively hate the Titans fans. And we're not going to go into those reasons today because I would need like two hours in order to discuss that topic. As the production team is actually buzzing in my ear saying a go Titans. But I think it's also kind of ironic that the Jacksonville spent so long trying to get or spent years flirting with other cities to get them to bring their team here. And then now, present day, the past I would say probably 10 to 15 years, uh other cities have actively tried to pull the Jaguars away, looking at you, LA and London. So, no, Jaguars aren't going anywhere. Let's fingers crossed. But ultimately, you know, in this particular situation, Jake Godbold and his team were doing was about building relationships because all of that that I just told you happened in the late 70s and 80s. And so in 1991, the NFL decided to add two teams to the current 28 team list, bringing the total to 30 teams. So five cities were invited to participate in the expansion of the NFL. So it was Baltimore, Carolina, Jacksonville, Memphis, and St. Louis. And so what happens next is that the city of Jacksonville forms an official group. So they have to form this official group called Touchdown Jacks in order to be the liaison to bring that team and set up all of the negotiations that has to happen from, you know, the ultimate decision of, hey, you know, we're going to give you a shot from the NFL in order to making that, you know, dream come to fruition. So the requirements from the NFL in order to get a team is that the NFL wants to deal with one person. They want one representative. They don't want to deal with a group. So even Touchdown Jacks was formed. They don't want to deal with an entire group. You have one owner that comes to the owner's meetings, and that's who they want to deal with. That is the ultimate sort of point of contact. So you have to have one point of contact. And then they would also be an owner that the league accepted. So you can't just nominate anyone. You have to nominate somebody that's going to be the owner of the team, be the liaison, but then also be an owner that the other owners would accept into their club, into their exclusive club. Then the other agree or the other requirement that you had to do was a first class or new facilities agreement in place. So you either had to have a brand new stadium or you had to have an agreement with the city and the taxpayers in order to fund a brand new city. Then you also had to pre-sell club seats so that the community would show support. And so if you're looking on the screen right now, there's a sign that says get your NFL club seats on July 1st. Your grandchildren will thank you. And so now that the requirements are already listed, that's when the real work begins. And so what happened is that the you had to negotiate between the city council and the city itself in order to replace the Gator Bowl. That was, you know, very, you know, sort of uh not underfunded, but it needed, it wasn't a first-class facility that the NFL wanted. Um so if you ever watched any of these sort of lease renewals or, you know, stadiums and other sports trying to get a new stadium, you know that those discussions can get a little ugly. And uh the stadium pricing started out at 50 million, but the price kept rising because of all of the other teams that were in the mix. All the other four teams you're essentially competing with. And so if they're gonna make a $100 million stadium, then you have to make a $120 million stadium. So the prices started to get crazy, and you can probably imagine how annoyed, you know, the non-football fans became, especially the ones on the city council, um, which is an interesting note because Touchdown Jacks knew about this annoyance, but instead they switched their pitch to saying, okay, let's look at it as you were already gonna spend 50 million on stadium renovations on the current stadium, but the NFL is going to give you an NFL team and you get a brand new stadium for 120 million, which I know it's a lot of money, but if you think about it from that lens, that's the way the touchdown jacks pitched it. So I thought that that was interesting. The next thing that they had to do. So once they came to that agreement with the city council and the stadium financing, the next would be to pre-sell those 10,000 club seats in 10 days. Jacksonville had to do that. So the team went to local news stations, they held a ticket drive, they went to large corporations in order to get them to commit to, you know, 500 tickets, 250 tickets. Sort of an interesting note here is that with a lot of these companies, they didn't think that Jacksonville had a chance either to get the team. And so they just said, yeah, we'll get, you know, put us down for 500, not thinking that the team would actually come to Jacksonville. So there was a lot of uh, Wayne Weaver says a lot of tight callers after the uh after the approval was finally given. So I thought that that was also an interesting note about the ticket sale process. But they ended up hitting that goal and then uh they actually extended, or not extended the goal, but exceeded the goal of over 10,000. So between the local community support, the local business support, they were able to get that 10,000 ticket threshold uh within 10 days, which is crazy to think about. Now, after all of that, they have to then submit all of that as an application in order to submit it to the NFL. They had one month to do this. Let's play a video from Tom Wade, who was in charge of that.

SPEAKER_06 12:56

Tom Wade was tasked with putting together a detailed application.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

We sincerely appreciate the league's serious consideration of Jacksonville for an NFL franchise in a short amount of time. It was one month. There were nights that uh that uh slept on the floor and woke up and worked some more. It was around the clock.

SPEAKER_07 13:23

You know, you just don't call the NFL and say, hey, you know, I want to we want a franchise. Uh that may be the way it starts. It's a bit it's about building the relationships, about them taking you seriously, about them betting the city.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

One of the major points was that the NFL was really formed in the days when the Rust Belt was uh was healthier, and so uh the Southeast was 20% of the population and 10% of the team. So uh one of the reasons I think for having a team here is you're putting uh franchises in places where the people will be, not where they have been. My recollection is that we sent one of the interns in the office uh with the application to the airport on the plane to hand deliver it to the NFL. But it was finished the day it was due.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Now there was also a couple of other components in that pitch, which is like a promo video for the city of Jacksonville itself, sort of marketing itself. And the voiceover for that video was done by James Earl Jones. I wish I could play it for you, but go watch that original sort of destiny video, and you can hear James Earl Jones. Yes, the the voice of Darth Vader, the voice of Mufasa and Lion King, he's the narrator of that promo video. And he did this before he was Mufasa in Lion King. So I thought that that was also an interesting note. So this is an entire package that's put together, it's submitted to the NFL, and then it comes down to voting. And so when the owners are getting together and they're voting, a lot of people think that Jacksonville and Charlotte were announced in the same year. And they were announced in the same year, but not at the same time. Because after these ownership meetings, it was Charlotte that was only approved. And they uh the rest of the teams were given an additional month. A lot of people think that this was a situation where they were the NFL was trying to give St. Louis an additional opportunity to sort of come to bat with a really good proposal. They never ended up doing that. And of course, Jacksonville was later awarded the franchise in uh a later month decision day. And I think we have enough time to play the announcement video, but I think it's really important, so let's play it.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

This is a special edition of I With the Flu.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Good afternoon. I'm Deborah Gianolis with Rob Sweeting. Jacksonville, are you sitting down?

SPEAKER_04 16:32

We have just learned that touchdown Jacksonville says it has been confirmed that Jacksonville has become the 30th NFL. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

We just we need somebody to pinch us.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Um it's my pleasure to announce that the uh membership has selected Jacksonville as the 30th NFL Club. I just want to say, uh, Commissioner, that uh the decision that the NFL made here today that Jacksonville is certainly going to make you proud.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

And they definitely have made us all proud because after 27 years of being awarded the team, the Jaguars are finally getting their first player inducted into the Hall of Fame this weekend. Mr. Tony Biselli left tackle for the Jaguars, very first ever draft round draft pick ever in the team's history. So it's kind of all coming to fruition for the city of Jacksonville and the Jaguars and being able to put this accomplishment, you know, on the pedestal that it deserves because it really is a story of getting the Jaguars, is the story of how the fan base and the players are today. It took determination, it took believing in the little guy. And it's really been an honor to sort of watch this all unfold. So I hope, you know, as we have the closing seconds, I hope you guys all tune into the Hall of Fame game tonight and the ceremonies on Saturday. One last time, go jack. All right. I hope you enjoyed that segment on the logistics of getting a football team. Now let's jump into the segment of what game day operations looks like. What does the logistics or planning around the London game typically months in advance it takes to plan for some of these games? So let's talk about it in the next segment. Um, so I found a bunch of videos uh online for courtesy of the NFL and also the Chargers um have put out a couple really good videos too, but they break down the process of what goes, what is all involved with an NFL game day. And it was a lot more intricate than I thought that it would be. So I'm gonna go ahead and start kick off. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Let's kick off this conversation um with a quote from one of the culinary chefs on NFL Game Day. And he said that if we have a Sunday game, it starts on Monday. And when he says it, he's referring to planning the food for game days. And that is just simply it's one piece of the puzzle when it comes to the logistics of the NFL. And so while I was researching the logistics of the NFL, not to, you know, drink every time I say that phrase, but there were some surprising factoids that made me appreciate all of the intricacies within the league. So shout out to the NFL YouTube channel and the chargers for dropping some great BTS of what is going on in and around game day that we as fans, when we're sitting in the stands or when we're watching at home on TV, we don't notice these things that much. So I want to share with you a few of my favorites. So the first one is food. So let's cover food. That's usually one of the most important parts or aspects of a game day. And for the logistics of the food on NFL Game Day, they said deliveries are scheduled for late on Mondays and all day on Tuesday. The culinary team gets started on Wednesdays after they get all of their shipments in, especially planning for the club and the box seats. Those are usually the ones that get the best food. The rest of us peons, we get the chicken and we get the pizza and we get the burgers, which are they're they're they're pretty good too, depending on where you go to eat your food. Um, now for earlier kickoffs like 1 p.m., the culinary team will actually start prepping at 3 a.m. on game days. So they start planning on a Wednesday and then they actually start prepping the food at 3 a.m. on the game day itself. Now, weather also affects their game day planning as far as food is concerned, because if you think about it, if it's cold, you always have gloves on. So you're not going to eat nachos. I thought that that was interesting that that goes into play whenever they're they're planning food on what to order and supply and demand and all that good stuff. Now, if it's hot, water bottles and ice become a top supply need. Now, speaking of the weather, especially for stadiums that have real grass like Green Bay, Jacksonville also has real grass. That's one of our few W's that we have on the board here, currently windless. Um, but you have to with a place like Green Bay, it gets so cold. And you have to manipulate the good growing conditions year-round. So we're gonna put a graphic up that is actually what the Green Bay field is made up of. They did a really big renovation a couple years ago, and they said that sand is hauled in and laid down on several layers of tubing. This tubing circulates anti-freeze that helps to keep the field warmer and it's powered by boilers within the stadium itself, or broilers, I guess is what that's probably the right name, not boilers. The field is not actually boiling. Um, but they also built this system accordance with the sun patterns. The north end zone gets the sun when the south end zone doesn't. So they supplement the lack of sunlight with grow lights that are on the field when the players obviously aren't playing on the field. So if you're looking at this image, you see a bunch of different farm grow lights, industrial-sized grow lights that are on the field. And they're as specifically on one more side of the field than they are on the other side of the field. Now, switching gears a little bit to the broadcast side of the logistics of the NFL, the broadcast team puts together a minute by minute, sometimes seconds game script. This game script is created for every single game day, and then that script gets submitted to the NFL and it's either approved or denied. Now, the video team operates 12 cameras on a game day, eight are manned for unmanned. And then fireworks also play a role in the timing for player intros and touchdowns. That's probably where the second by second uh game script is coming into play. And if you're looking at the screen, you can see just a small sample of what the game script actually looks like. And this was created just a couple of years ago. Um, but a lot of teams will use this similar format and watching the videos. And I linked to that video as well as all of the other guests and stories that we've talked about on the show within the show description. So be sure to check that video out. But fireworks play a huge role because it's the timing for the intros and the touchdowns. They prep for only six touchdowns a game. So if the home team scores more, they don't get any more fireworks. We've never had that problem in Jacksonville. Uh, maybe one day we will have that problem. Uh, but on the equipment side of things, and and also for the Tom Brady haters and Nicki Minaj fans, there's a special machine to measure the inflation levels of NFL balls. There's 12 primary balls and there's 12 backup balls. And they have to be inspected by each team a couple of hours before kickoff in order to make sure that no one is pulling any funny business. Now, for as far as the sideline tech, which I thought was pretty cool, there are two technical trucks on the field, one for team communication and then one for the Microsoft Surface Comms. Now, another tech rep that just walks around the field monitoring frequencies, he makes sure that no one else on the field can interrupt that frequency. A lot of times, if uh with sports complexes, they have stadiums within the area, um, they may have other performing acts going on. There was a situation, I think an example of uh Madonna was in town doing a concert and her when she was doing her little practice run before the Concert, her com system was interrupting an NFL calm system. So if you could imagine being a coach on the sidelines during an NFL game and hearing Madonna in your ear, I think that that's an interesting technical challenge that you have to actually solve. But concert rehearsals, concessions, um, asking, you know, ice cream is out at this stand, we need to get a refill, or you know, barbecue sauce is out over here, somebody please get it. Like that's not the kind of stuff that an NFL coach wants to hear on the sidelines. So is that there's a guy specifically walking around in order to make sure that no other frequencies are interrupting the conversations between uh people up in the booth, people up in the box, um, refs communicating back and forth with each other with the league. So there's a guy that specifically walks around just to monitor the frequencies. And speaking of the tech, the technical staff all on the field, notice look for this next time. They're all organized by the color of their hat. So, like a yellow hat oversees coach-to-coach communication, an orange hat handles coach-to-player communication, purple manages the Microsoft Surface sideline viewing system, blue is network technicians, and then the gray is for a football technology rep. Umly, and I thought that this was also interesting too, that only team medical staff are the only ones on the field that can use cell phones. And all of this game day production, it doesn't just happen in the US. You also have to think about the international series because it's not a Jaguars game day unless the London is mentioned in some capacity. And I'm gonna have a little bit of attitude when I talk about that because I don't like the London series, but I'm gonna talk about the logistics of it because it's kind of fascinating. Um, let's talk about the logistics planning that takes upwards of a year to solidify just for the London games. And if you're watching on the screen right now, you can see a container that is placed outside of an NFL stadium where an equipment manager is loading up all of the different supplies that their team is going to need in the future whenever they do play over in London. So the LA Rams was the example that the NFL used that has a great breakdown of their process. So three months, yes, three months before kickoff, a shipping container is sent from LA to New York City. And that container includes things like nutritional items, hydration items, medical supplies. It's essentially a walking hospital that can't travel via air. So it can't go by plane, it has to go by container and it has to go by ship. Also, in that container is practice equipment, uh, generators for electricity, dry goods, and condiments, which will come into play, um, especially when you you think about the players that are over there and they're not necessarily used to London food and they want some, you know, some comfort food from home. So condiments are another thing that are shipped over there. And they put this all in a container, it goes over to New York, and then from New York, it goes on a ship, and then it gets loaded onto the ship and headed over to London. Now, for the most important shipments to be made, obviously the players who usually start a the so with the players in general, they're not going over there obviously three months in advance. But what the NFL tries to do is they try to set up the schedule to where the team plays away. And when the team plays away, so let's use LA for example. LA played in Atlanta, so they played against Atlanta on a Sunday. They're gonna those players are going to stay in Atlanta, they're gonna stay there for three days so their bodies can get used to changing of the time zones. So once they stay in LA for a few, or once they stay in Atlanta for a few days, then after the game is over, it's usually like a Tuesday or a Wednesday that they will then fly directly to London. And then that way their body is acclimating more to the time zone change quicker. And as soon as they get off the plane in London, what they'll do is they'll fly all night. So obviously they're they're kind of hoping that the players are going to sleep all night. And so when they fly all night, they immediately get off the plane and they go right to practice because they want, they don't want their players like going to sleep or taking a nap. Um, they want to get them right into the normal, you know, habits of a normal game week. Uh, usually coaches and players are creatures of habit. And so getting that first workout in, they found over the years of playing that that is a great way to help the players get acclimated much, much quicker. Now, we mentioned earlier with the food that's being uh it's a big obstacle as far as uh accommodating the players whenever they come over. So they work with the the NFL teams will work with chefs over wherever the players are staying, to work with those hotel chefs in order to make sure that they're making more American-style food instead of London-based food. And now finally, the equipment that arrives nine days before the game. And that's usually around the time that players will start to travel to uh to their London game as well as nine days ahead of time. It's an additional 25,000 pounds of cargo that's flown overseas, and it includes cleats, helmets, technology, um, iPads, jerseys, not iPads, actual pads that the jerseys wear, um, uh jerseys, practice equipment, things like that. So that's all shipped over nine days in advance. That's not including the container that was shipped over three months in advance. So it's all of these intricacies that are coming into play, and it really is. It's like a Broadway show that's been organized down to the second, and it comes together every day or every Sunday or Monday or Thursday, depending on when your team is playing. It's all in the fall. And it's my favorite sport. Um, I'm sure if I speak for a lot of other people when I say that it's their favorite sport as well. So it was interesting to dive into uh the logistics of the NFL and how uh our careers in this space play a role within that space as well. All right, hope you enjoyed that really fun topic around all of just the logistical operations behind game day. Now let's talk about the logistics of championship merchandise, whether it's for the winners or for the losers. If you watched the championship game earlier this week between Alabama and Georgia, you spoiler alert, Georgia won, but you may have noticed that during the post-game coverage that Georgia linebacker N'Cobe Dean was actually enjoying the celebration while wearing an Alabama hat. It was later corrected, but you might be asking yourself, well, how did this happen? And where does that Alabama merchandise, the loser merchandise from the championship game, where does that go to after the game is over? So let's start with the first part of the logistics of championship merchandise, and that's on the manufacturing side of things. Because as a background to it, the the NFL partners or the NFL and other leagues like the NCAA and the other major sports leagues, they partner with companies like Fanatics and local printing shops. And usually the week before the championship game, that's when two sets of championship merchandise is printed. And around 250 units. So enough units for the players and the staff that are going to actually be on the field, they print one set for one team and they print another set for the other team. Now each sets are placed in their respective bags and kept at the stadium, usually an official from each league or you know, from the NFL or from the NCAA, uh, an official from that league is responsible only for that merchandise. And so they keep tabs on it, they keep track of it, and towards the end of the game, if there is a clear winner, one set will be left behind in an office from the official organization. So typically, you know, like the league offices from the NFL, the NCAA officials, not folks directly associated with the team, but more from like the corporate level that are in charge of these game or in charge of these bags of this championship merchandise. So if there's a clear winner, they leave one behind and they start to bring the official winner's merchandise out closer to the field. If it's a close game, however, then officials will bring both sets of the team gear to the field. So if you're watching this on Freight Waves TV, you'll notice that the clip that is playing is officials scrambling towards the end of the infamous game where the Giants ended the Patriots goal. This was back in 2009. So if the footage is a little fuzzy, uh that's why, is because we've come light years since then as far as broadcast footage is concerned. But that infamous game ended the Patriots, the Giants ended the Patriots goal of trying to get that perfect season, that 19-0 perfect record. But if you notice in the clip that one official has one team's gear and the other team is hidden in the referee section. And so when the game is going back and forth, the officials are having to switch out this merchandise several times because the game just keeps going back and forth. So you can kind of understand knowing that context and how this merchandise is handled from getting to the manufacturer, the print shop to the officials' hands and then making it to the field. It can kind of make sense while that Georgia linebacker was wearing the wrong hat initially earlier this week over on the sidelines trying to, and I think there are also maybe some confusion from a lot of the different officials when you play for Georgia and you're used to seeing a lot of Georgia merchandise, which the Atlanta A, Atlanta Braves A, is very similar to the Alabama A. So you could kind of understand how that mix-up might have happened in the first place. So we talk about the distribution of the merchandise to the players and the staff on the field, but what about the distribution to the fans after that moment is captured, after the championship or after the champion is determined? How does that gear get to the fans? Well, Fanatics is the company that most sports fans are aware of, and they hold the printing rights to all of the major sports leagues and their championship merchandise. But it in this 2019 Fast Company article, it highlights how they print merchandise quickly. And I'm going to quote the article here. Says more than 50% of a championship team's merchandise sales take place within the first 72 hours after the win. To meet this demand and maximizing fulfillment, Fanatics enlists local printers and even sets up pop-up shops along victory parade routes. For an example, the Washington Capitol Stanley Cup victory back in June, just a few years ago, the company teamed up with Uber to deliver orders. Fanatics is able to drive sales, Max says, by tapping into that excitement. So that's a cool little note that within 72 hours, all of the fans of that winning team, they then want that same merchandise that they saw their team wearing after the post-game or during the post-game coverage. So it's pretty insightful or it's pretty interesting that within the first 72 hours, that's when most of the championship merchandise is being printed and being sold. Now, what about the losing merchandise? Maybe a lot of you sports fans have probably already heard that a lot of this merch gets donated across the globe to countries in need, especially after maybe they've experienced a natural disaster and some of this merchandise is in high need. So what happens in that case is the NFL, along with other major sports leagues like the NCAA, they partner with a charity called Good 360. We're gonna go ahead and play a clip from Fox 13 in Tampa.

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Sherry Rudolph is with Good360, a nonprofit that partners with the NFL to ensure those unusable items don't go on the market and are donated to people in places that need them the most.

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We work with the NFL on a pre-vetted and pre-approved list of countries, and those goods could go anywhere in Africa, Asia, the Middle East.

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Between the two conference title games and the Super Bowl, literally thousands of items will be shipped, including branded masks new this year.

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These things, even t-shirts and hats and sweatshirts, can truly be life-changing and transformational for those who otherwise wouldn't have access to these goods. Never before has it been greater than now because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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So even the losing side still wins in a sense, even if that victory goes unseen.

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For the fans of whichever team doesn't happen to take home the trophy this weekend, there's definitely a silver lining that these products will help people in need.

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In Tampa, Josh Cassio, Fox 13 News.

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That is a silver lining. Good 360 works with several other hundred, uh, several hundred other companies on those kinds of donations. Another major league partner of theirs is Major League Baseball.

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Now, what's cool about this and what's briefly mentioned in that Good 360 news story is that it partners with other charities too. So it's not like, you know, somebody in need is just getting a bunch of merchandise from a loser team in the US. They're getting an entire package of goods, food, water, basics, basic supplies, basic necessities along with this merchandise. So it goes over a little bit better in my opinion when it's a whole package instead of just sending these oversized t-shirts to to countries in need, because they need a lot more, let's be honest, than just the t-shirts. So that's a good note about that good 360 charity. And then instead of, and it also thinking of it from the perspective of some of these other bigger brands like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, when they have a surplus of merchandise, what they do is they burn it. They they don't donate it to other countries. They just get rid of the merchandise because they don't want they don't want to the perception of their brand to be devalued, whatever, you know, obviously that means, um, which we know what it means, but it still just kind of sounds like a jerky thing to say. You have all of this merchandise and you could be donating it to people who need it, or maybe even severely discounting it and and selling it off at outlet stores, something like that, something other than just burning the merchandise, perfectly good merchandise. Um, so that's what this charity, good 360, um, that that's what they stand for, is is instead of destroying merchandise, taking merchandise, and then also necessities like food and water and other life hygiene products, things like that, and they then donated it to a country in need. They work with their partners in order to pre-vet different uh different countries that they would be sending this merchandise to. So that's obviously a good thing instead of burning that merchandise. But the last part of this story, which I wanted to leave you with, is that going back to that Patriots versus Giants game, now that that was a perfect season that never was for the Patriots. But when those shirts were taken and they were donated to a small village in that was, uh I think devastated by a hurricane earlier that year, a girls' soccer team actually used those Patriots 19-0 perfect season t-shirts that never were. They used them as their uniform. And then they would go on to win their league championship, their local league championship, wearing those same shirts and a comeback two-to-one victory in their title game. So while that that's a really good story, and while this entire process feels kind of like a mad scramble, a lot of this is done with an intentionally and on occasion, a funny story like the Georgia linebacker wearing the wrong merchandise takes place. But then on the other hand, a wholesome story like the girls' soccer team wearing the 19-0 shirts gets to actually celebrate a championship that was supposed to be celebrated by the Patriots, but now they get to celebrate a championship wearing those same shirts. So both of those stories are really fun to share and a much better alternative than what some other companies choose to do with their surplus merchandise and just letting it go to waste. So I thought that that was a fun little dive into what happens during the entire process of the printing and the shipping and the distribution and not only the distribution to the fans and to the players on the field, but then the distribution of that merchandise so that it does not go to waste. So that is the logistics of championship merchandise.