It’s Not Just a T-Shirt

Merch is complicated. When I see someone who’s clearly not a Yankees fan wearing a Yankees hat, I can’t help but wonder—are they repping the team, or is this just…a look? Which raises the bigger question: why do we buy merch at all?

Sometimes, merch is simple. If it’s a band I love or a team I actually root for, the decision is easy—I buy the t-shirt, the doohickey, the commemorative whatchamacallit. It’s a badge of devotion, a way to broadcast allegiance. In that case, the merch is directly tied to the brand that made it. But then there’s the other kind—the stuff that takes on a life of its own, like the aforementioned non-sports-y Yankees cap, or any of the I ❤️ NY junk. People don’t buy those things to support NYC tourism or Milton Glaser or the Yankees. They’re buying into an idea, an identity. Same with the Everyone Watches Women’s Sports tee that became a full-blown cultural moment last summer. Togethxr made millions on that thing—not because people were dying to support Togethxr, but because they cared about women’s sports. The brand was just the vehicle.

For smaller businesses, though, the brand is the whole point. The name on the shirt isn’t there for decoration or to feed a bigger mission; it’s there to get the word out. The hard part is getting people to care enough to buy it in the first place. A pop star can move hundreds of t-shirts in a night, but for a small local business, selling even a hundred in a year can be a stretch. The barriers are real—production costs, lack of brand recognition, no built-in event where people are primed to buy. When I worked at a Quaker school in Philly, spirit apparel felt like an obvious necessity. The community wanted it. We wanted to make it happen. But actually producing, storing, and selling it? A logistical nightmare. The financial return? Bad. The marketing impact? Impossible to track. Even now, years later, I’m still puzzling over it.