Redbox Bowl Prints T-shirt With Wrong School, Wrong Helmet

Brendan Menapace

Congratulations to Cal State for being selected to play Illinois in the Redbox Bowl! Wait, what’s that? OK, I’m receiving word that it’s actually the University of California that’s playing in the Redbox Bowl, despite what the official Redbox Bowl T-shirt says.

Well, this is embarrassing.

Yes, there are a lot of universities under the California State umbrella, but the University of California is not one of them. And since the Golden Bears are such a big name in NCAA football (whereas Cal State schools typically haven’t been), this is a pretty big whoopsie.

What’s even worse is that the University of California officials saw the design and told the creators, ‘Hey, that’s a totally different school.” But, somehow, the T-shirt design still made it through the assembly line.

Here’s a tweet from John Lemein, creative director and brand/web manager for Cal.

https://twitter.com/jlemein/status/1204454484769832961

Redbox Bowl officials did the right thing (albeit late) by removing the design from the website, according to the LA Times, but in the day and age where every slight misstep is roasted immediately by the keyboard-wielding masses, it became A Thing on social media.

Oh, but that’s not even the full extent of the mishap. Redbox’s designers also used an outdated version of Illinois’ helmet.

That mistake has gone uncorrected on the Redbox Bowl website, which means the organizers might just be throwing their hands up and calling this T-shirt design a wash. And that’s a shame.

This is all easily avoided by just a few minutes of fact checking. In the modern sports merchandise world, getting things out fast is highly important. Everyone wants a T-shirt the moment a bowl game is announced or a team wins. But, it’s just as important to be correct as it is to be first. Probably more so!

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