An English soccer club, Sheffield Wednesday, released a statement this week regarding knockoff club merchandise.
The statement read that the sale of knockoff merchandise was hurting the club's pockets, which makes sense. They are a club selling shirts, leisure wear and other products to help fund their operations on and off the field. They went further, saying any shirts brought into their club shop that were not purchased through official stores would not be eligible for customization (adding numbers or player names). Again, that's fair. It would just encourage people to continue buying cheap, knockoff products.
Here is where it gets messy. In the statement, the club said anyone attending games would be asked to leave and reported to the "relevant parties."
So, instead of allowing people to support their team by purchasing tickets and wearing their colours, albeit with maybe knockoff shirts, they are threatening to kick paying people out and more.
Why not just make merchandise more affordable?
Sports fans are no strangers to how expensive merchandise is. Right now, an official Vancouver Canucks authentic home jersey on the official NHL shop is $279.00. Go ahead and get that Elias Pettersson home jersey. It's $194.99. Oh wait, the blank authentic jersey has been reduced to $139.99 from $199.99. That's still a week's worth of groceries for most families.
There's no surprise people are looking at fake and cheap jerseys. For some, that's a big amount of money to part with. Professional sports teams are effectively pricing people out of their fandoms. On top of buying a Vancouver Canucks jersey, the cheapest ticket you can get for their game starts at around $50 for a single person. While that's not unreasonable, if you take your family of four, you are looking at around $236 or more, including the ticket processing fees on Ticketmaster.
I get it. Sports is an expensive business. But at least the Canucks aren't going to ban someone from the arena for wearing a jersey someone bought from a sketchy booth outside the arena on game day or a shadier website.
One of the things that made professional sports so reasonable and loveable was they made you feel like you belonged. It didn't matter if you were rich or poor. It didn't matter if you owned a Lexus or a beat-up 2004 Nissan Note. It didn't matter if you had a three-course meal or a packet of Kraft Dinner. You'd get back from home or work, put on the shirt and go to the game. You'd love it because it was an escape for a couple of hours, and the ticket was reasonably priced. Forget the bills for one night.
Of course, an argument could be made that a fan doesn't have to buy the club's shirt. They don't have to go to the game. Just watch it on TV or stream it on the computer. But now you need streaming services that cost $200 yearly or $30 for a month. Sure, it can be done illegally, but that comes with its risks However, sitting at home doesn't feel the same. You don't get to celebrate the game or the team in the same way.
At this point, it feels like professional sports teams are alienating a large portion of their fanbase to line their owner's pockets.
