Did everyone have fun watching the Super Bowl? Our Kansas City area readers are probably having a better Monday than our friends in the Bay, but trust that we in Philadelphia can empathize.
The Super Bowl is exciting enough, but what happens immediately after the final whistle blows and confetti falls is what we at PPM are really paying attention to. (No, we don’t mean Taylor Swift making her way to the field to hug the Lesser Kelce Brother. Go Birds.)
We’re talking about the commercial advertising the Kansas City Chiefs championship apparel and collectibles. You can see the players on the field don their hats and T-shirts, but we know that it goes much deeper than that.
So, we took a look at the official Chiefs merchandise to point out what we thought worked the best, and where the collection may have fallen flat.
We Love a Theme
With this year’s game happening in Vegas, the thing that stands out the most is the T-shirt using the design of the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign. The lights are red and yellow to match the Chiefs’ color scheme, and the team logo is slapped on underneath the sign, ensuring that there’s a Niners version making its way to countries like Latvia, Ukraine, and more as part of a nonprofit agreement with the NFL.
Meh Catchphrases
Sometimes catchy wordplay can come off as clunky. This “Home with the Chrome” T-shirt, using a trademark-free way to reference the Lombardi Trophy, is an example of that phenomenon. It’s not egregious, but it’s not exactly cool either. It feels very forced.
Sometimes Basic is Best
To that last point, you can’t go wrong with just making a T-shirt in the team’s colors, using a basic font and design elements, and declaring them champions. Add a little “two in a row” line, and this Chiefs shirt is a must-buy for any fan.
Time Capsules
Just like that line about the back-to-back win marks this achievement, the T-shirt with the full roster on the back is a great way to remember exactly who got the team here. And as much as we like to riff with our friends about sometimes under-appreciated or often-forgotten athletes of the past, this T-shirt could be a fun trivia item in the future. There’s a similar shirt with each player’s signature on the back, too.
Have Some Fun
Why not make a wrestling-style championship belt? A championship belt really should be the gold standard for any sort of award or prize. Make the Nobel Prize a championship belt!
Stay Fashion-Forward
The apparel doesn’t just have to have an athletic look. You can choose headwear options like this cableknit beanie with the pompom on top, which still features the team logo and a red color scheme, but without feeling too overtly “sporty,” you know?
Plan for Next Season
Chiefs fans can show off their champion status next season at the stadium with clear bags like this, which incorporate the decoration but still adhere to stadium rules about clear bags.
Kit It Up
Finally, just like last year, we’re celebrating the Fanatics branded kit that has pretty much everything you’d want to commemorate the win. It has a canc cooler, a double-sided locker room towel, three decals, a lanyard, a pennant, and the off-white champions hat that you saw the players toss on after the final whistle.
Now, for the sake of both our ability to get creative at work and our football fandom, we’d like to see how the NFL uses a different color scheme to create these products, and how they tie in any local flavor or themes from the season into the products themselves.
A tie-dye shirt in midnight green and white would look great, in our humble and unbiased opinion.
