In the middle of Mel Brooks’ film “Spaceballs” (a splendid spoof version of ‘Star Wars”, by the way) there is a kind of pause and a notice appears on the screen: “Spaceballs - the merchandising”. There then follows a display of mugs, tea towels, T-shirts, books, toys and models, all related to the film. Merchandising! A lucrative spin-off to any enterprise!
This morning I read that the Nike company has done a marketing u-turn. They were refusing to sell replicas of England goalkeeper Mary Earps’ green jersey. But there was a public outcry. Her penalty save in the Women’s World Cup final has been described as “the most nailbiting moment of the tournament. She has become a role-model to budding young female footballers. They want to be her and in the meantime they want her shirt.
A petition in support of Mary Earps, who won the tournament’s Golden Glove award, and “all female goalkeepers around the world” gained more than 150,000 signatures. Even Parliament got involved; the Conservative MP Tracey Crouch, a former sports minister, submitted a motion in parliament calling on Nike to release a jersey.
And now, it seems, Nike has agreed to retail “limited quantities”of goalkeeper jersey for four teams it provided kits for – England, US, France and the Netherlands. That’s thoughtful of them! Of course, what the news report doesn’t say is that if there are “limited quantities”, then the prices can be a little higher. After all, we’re talking about something that will become a collectors’ item.
Merchandising is big business. That’s why football have home kit and away kit - so that adoring supporters can be persuaded to buy both sets, usually for their offspring but often for grown-up supporters too. And some people will buy those goalkeeper shirts as a kind of investment, for resale some time in the future.
I confess to having given in on a couple of occasions to buying “the t-shirt” at concerts. I possess a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers t-shirt and one from the James Taylor and Paul Simon concert in Hyde Park. That last one turned out to be an ice-breaker as my sister and I travelled back from London to Manchester wearing our t-shirts, announcing to anyone interested that we had been there! And it led to some interesting train conversations.
As a rule though, I don’t give in to all the adverts for t-shirts, signed photos, coffee mugs and so on that pop up on Facebook “pages”. In fact, I’ve practically decided I must block some of them. You can grow sick of repeated expressions of sadness that James Taylor did not remain married to Carly Simon, or complaints because Bruce Springsteen did not perform a fan’s favourite song! Not to mention all the selfies at Springsteen concerts!
There you go!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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