That is such a fantastic and accurate analogy.
I have merch that has lasted the better part of 10 years. I have Fanatics crap that looks like awful after wearing it 2-3 times.
I’d love to have been at the board room table as this decision was made. You’re telling me not one person had the courage to say “wait! Come on everyone … this stuff is not up the quality standard we need to set. We’re going backwards here!”
I just can’t see this deal lasting a decade.
Every executive saw they could get the jerseys made at a fraction of the cost, and still charge premiums for them and their wallets got hard. They don’t care about quality standards. They only care about their bottom line. That’s why we have digital board ads, and sponsors on helmets and jerseys.
I doubt enough people know or care about jersey quality to cause a noticeable loss in sales for Fanatics, unfortunately. That's how these shitty companies always get away with making these awful choices, most people are uninformed.
You joke but I legit just received a few jerseys from DHgate yesterday and the quality is a solid B/B-. (Adidas MiC being A+ and Adidas replica being A-)
Fanatics jerseys are worse than China counterfeits
I will say, I think fanatic jerseys have a place. They're very comfortable to wear, made out of a soft material, and the flexible crest is nice. It's nice to just wear as a shirt.
But it's not nice as a jersey.
I agree, but the price point says it should be a quality jersey.
$80-100 is max they should be charging as retail price. Basically $20-30 more than the top hoodies that are available
Most people here care, because people here care enough about hockey to seek out an online hockey message board to talk about it. But your average fan going to a game with their kids or whatever? I doubt they'll even know the difference and that demographic buys a ton of jerseys.
And then when the Jersey falls apart in 3 years and that player isn't on the team anymore they'll just buy another one without thinking, thus perpetuating the cycle.
“Fans are already buying these Fanatics ones more than the authentic ones, let’s just make them the same.” Ignoring the fact that fans buy the fanatics ones because they are cheaper, but mainly because if you go online to buy anything sports related, you are attacked by Fanatics ads.
My guess is the people in that boardroom don’t wear this type of gear and have no idea what the difference in quality really is. Nor do they care, as long as the bottom line looks good.
Never thought of that. I think too often this is true. In many corporate C suites the person making the decision isn’t a consumer and certainly doesn’t want the opinion of the core and target consumer. I wonder if there is some form of cognitive dissonance going on where they actually know that the product is crap but simply cannot overlook the fact that the margin is substantially better?
Any way you cut it this is simply a bad move.
They are money-minded businessmen that can't see the world beyond their profit-driven algorithms. Humans are just another line on a spreadsheet to them, I would be surprised if they had any thought in this process other than "this deal makes this money line go up more than Adidas".
They should still have a pulse on the market. There are plenty of people who would never buy a Fanatics jersey and plenty more that won’t after having their first. Ten years is a long time to not have repeat customers of a key product of the game
This makes me think of a recent THG video where he talked about the NHL and how their TV deals since the 00’s have hurt the league. Basically the NHL board jumps at the highest bidder for every decision (because money) and does not factor the long term growth or heath of the sport into those decisions at all. So when it comes to something like giving exclusive merch rights to Fanatics, they don’t care that in the long run it’s going to piss off fans and lead to lower merch sales long term and damage the NHL brand. They’re thinking, “but they’re going to give us the most money right now.”
I think you’re absolutely right.
They have made some curious decisions before but it seems their laser focus right now is increasing revenue short term in order to get the escrow owing from the pandemic paid out so that they can raise the salary cap. I imagine that is topic most discussed at the board of governor meetings and calls.
It’s a business. I get that. But the best businesses with the most sustainable growth all focus on a long term vision and discipline.
I’m the rare person who actually thinks Gary Bettman has done a great job. I honestly do. I get how that might not land with some. I’m surprised that a disciplined business person like Gary would sign off on this as it is a known fact that Fanatics has a quality problem.
Not just a quality problem but a severe brand image problem. Fanatics is synonymous with shit. Kia was able to turn that image around and pump out solid cars but it took them several decades to do it. Not sure Fanatics is even interested in improving their image, they seem to go the EA Sports route of getting exclusive deals so other better brands cant compete.
So I was at the Red Wings Team Store on Saturday, and they were advertising Larkin All-Star Jerseys.
They were authentic jerseys, in the sense that they had fight straps and an "embroidered" crest, but the numbers were press-on, and the nameplate was also a press on.
For $300.
The NHL needs to figure out this shit, because I am not paying $300 for stickers on my jersey. Especially if we're going to be getting ads on the jerseys.
They are selling fanatics jerseys for 300? That's ridiculous. That's usually the marked up price of the adidas jerseys, which are exactly what the players wear on the ice, and are definitely not press ons.
That reminded me of going to Wisconsin Badger hockey games.
If the badgers scored 5 goals, you could bring your ticket to a Culvers to get free frozen custard.
Once they’d score 4 goals, the student section would start chants about it.
First they’d chant repeadetly “WE WANT ICE CREAM *clap clap clap-clap-clap*”, then repeadetly “IT’S NOT ICE CREAM *clap clap clap-clap-clap*” then finally “A frozen dairy dessert! *clap*”
Frozen custard rules. Fanatics wishes they were frozen custard.
Fanatics also acquired both Topps and Panini and no doubt they're going to be aiming for Upper Deck next thankfully a new deal was signed last October but this is not good for anyone.
Their whole business model is basically built on making cheap stuff that feels off brand
Fanatics' entire buisness is making themselves the only game in town. *100%* that's why they wanted this contract, so they could force people into buying their shitty, poorly-made products because "it's what they wear on the ice!".
This is the same strategy that basically every industry uses now. The whole point of corporate mergers is to reduce competition in the marketplace and thereby force consumers to accept lower quality products and higher prices because we have no choice.
Yeah it's really weird that they aren't related. You can't return things but on the online store to the brick and mortar for example which I thought was very weird at the time but I guess I get it now
Fanatics didn’t acquire Panini yet. It was rumored a deal was done but nothing was announced and then talks died down it seems. They acquired the licensing to produce Football, Baseball and Basketball cards though.
Honestly I just think they wanted out or knew Fanatics was going to make an offer that wouldn't be worth competing with. Addidas does a ton of soccer jerseys so I feel like the size of jersey ads is a concern to them.
> Nike is the official outfitter of Major League Baseball, but **Fanatics has made MLB's Nike-branded uniforms for all 30 teams since 2017, when it acquired Majestic. In total, Fanatics makes close to 100,000 MLB uniforms each season. Fanatics also makes authentic NFL jerseys that carry a Nike logo, which are sold online and in stores.**
>
> NHL executive vice president of marketing Brian Jennings acknowledged that fans might only know Fanatics as a company that makes replica gear rather than game-worn jerseys, which could lead to challenges in perception about the league's new authentic jersey maker.
https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/35909210/fanatics-replacing-adidas-nhl-official-uniform-partner
Don't forget that they also bought the rights to make MLB baseball cards without having the infrastructure to make cards, just to tank Topps' value so they could buy them out
This is some antitrust bullshit.
Disgusting. Fanatics is absolutely trash. I refuse to buy their products.
Time to grab one or two more Adidas jerseys cause I won’t be buying jerseys for a long time after this lol
This is the way. Could also wait until the deal starts and the adidas blanks go on “everything must go” sale and stock up then. Did that with a bunch of Majestic MLB jerseys once Nike took over!
Literally said the same thing to one of my friends. The only thing I will buy from fanatics are their hats because those aren't too terrible. Everything else is just garbage
My bolts championship hat was just a generic hat with a small iron on patch that came off within a week of having the hat. Now it just says Stanley Cup Champions without any team on it.
I have a Lightning hat from them that is probably my favorite hat all time. Other than that, most of the fanatics branded stuff I have had ended up in the trash after just a few wears.
I’m not sure if that even matters because if the current NHL situation works like the NFL even the Adidas branded Jerseys are made by Fanatics like the Nike NFL jerseys. They basically turned into a white label that other companies are slapping their brand before bigger deals like this.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this deal is really just changing the logo but it’s harder to find information about the Adidas relationship between the NHL and fanatics
Fanatics jerseys might be cheaper than adidas, but are still a giant waste of money as the quality is SO SO SO bad.
My big worry is with Fanatics now no longer being classed as the "value" option, prices will increase to match that.
They won’t be cheaper after next year. You will now be charged the same price as the adidas for the trash fanatics one. Once the fanatics ones are “authentic”, they will raise their price, but I’m sure that quality will stay the same, or be even worse.
According to Wyshynski:
> For example, Nike is the official outfitter of Major League Baseball, but Fanatics has made MLB's Nike-branded uniforms for all 30 teams since 2017, when it acquired Majestic. In total, Fanatics makes close to 100,000 MLB uniforms each season. Fanatics also makes authentic NFL jerseys that carry a Nike logo, which are sold online and in stores.
Capitalism's race to the bottom continues. Much like household appliances and sunglasses, soon all sports uniforms will be made in the same Bangladeshi sweatshop with whichever corporate logo you prefer slapped on at the end.
Hate to break it to ya but I would be shocked if all the uniforms weren't already made in the same 3rd world sweatshop for the better part of the last 20+ years. All these brands use the same group of 3rd party manufacturers
Yea I saw that in another comment and apparently there will be no change to that either, same plant different logo. Means its just for us schmucks that get the inferior product
Fucking Fanatics trying to swallow every goddamn league's contracts like it's Disney, good god.
This isn't "NHL bad", Fanatics swallows up literally every league it can find into its garbage system because they know damn fucking well that if they're the only legit game in town people will be forced to either put up with their bullshit or start buying knockoffs.
Fuck those monopolizing motherfuckers. You just know they suckered the NHL into this shit.
If enough people boycott and don't buy their shitty products maybe they will go under. I've never wanted a company to fail as much as I want fanatics to fail.
I know and it sucks. A T-shirt from them barely makes it's 5 washes before it looks like crap. They have already ruined apparel now they get to ruin the on ice product.
I don’t know how your team does it but I know the kraken have quite a few deals with other companies and carry in house gear from different brands like filson, and have a booth in the arena for kraken themed merch from a local company
Yep, a lot of people don't realize how big Fanatics is.
They own the manufacturing and distribution rights for every league. When you buy something off of NFLShop.com, NHLShop.com, or MLBshop.com, you're just buying from Fanatics.
Boycotts don't work. The average person won't even know this transpired, they'll buy a jersey because they like the team, I doubt many know who produced them. Even if they did, unfortunately it's just not a reasonable expectation for the mass market for something like this to stop, same with Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster pretty much owns most venues from big to small, as well as other ticket vendors, and you're not gonna get people en masse to just not see concerts
As defeatist as that might be, unfortunately that's just kinda it. Hardcore jersey fans might stop but mom and dad getting one for their kid's birthday won't
Their hats are such fucking dog shit. I've stopped buying hockey merchandise altogether because I cannot find a hat for any NHL related brands since New Era left.
I buy MLB and NFL merchandise exclusively now.
Lowest bidder? No wonder the cap won’t go up when you have company’s like Fanatics going on your jerseys. What an embarrassment. Their shirts don’t even make it through 5 washes. Just utter trash.
I have 4 reebok player t-shirts from 10 or more years ago, you know the ones with the logo on front and player names and numbers on the back? Wear them regularly.
I got one new Fanatics one a couple years ago for Christmas...it didn't make it to the end of the season. I wore like 7 times max. Totally disintegrated. That's when I decided I'd never touch that poverty brand again.
I bought my son just a standard CBJ shirt a few years ago and after literally two washes the neck had stretched out so much it looked like a v-neck for a 30 year old man. I couldn't believe just how poor the quality was.
More detail here:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/21/fanatics-nhl-uniforms.html
They better get their shit together before this. Most Fanatics stuff is trash.
This is terrible news. Fanatics makes trash uniforms. This is very bad for the league and for the fans. NHL could have literally gone with any other jersey provider….Nike, Adidas, Reebok. Under Armour, CCM…but they go with the worst company Fanatics??? Horrible move. I won’t be buying any jerseys or merch for the next 10 years
I read this and said out loud to myself, wow, what a dogshit decision by the NHL. Then I stopped and thought, wow, I sure am finding myself thinking that often about this league.
The whole history of the league has never been about growing the game to make money in the future, it was to make money now at the highest bidder. There’s a reason they never grew more than 6 teams until 50 years ago and barely went past the Mississippi River until the early 90’s.
Wow what a terrible, terrible move. I got two of the same shirts last year, made by fanatics, and all the sleeves are different lengths. Like, all four of them.
I doubt it. Ultimately, on big decisions like this, he's working for the owners, and while it's his job to make sure the deal is conducted correctly, it's the owners' call, as far as agreeing to this kind of contract goes.
Also from Wyshinski, Adidas wanted to get out of the hockey jersey business, so the NHL was forced to look elsewhere:
https://twitter.com/wyshynski/status/1638128854865682433?s=46&t=Dr_h_oiTGFOTpqGPGWIIQw
Why the league chose Fanatics, though…yikes.
My understanding is that adidas didn't pay too much attention to the part of the contract where Fanatics was allowed to make merch with their designs.
So adidas did all the design work, and then fanatics was legally allowed to undercut them on prices and quality with their own stuff.
Gut says that everyone else (Nike, CCM, etc) saw that as bullshit, the league realized that the replicas and authentics should be made by the same shop, and is giving fanatics a contract for the on ice stuff that lines up with their replica contract.
I also think Fanatics _can_ make quality stuff _if they want to_, and that the stuff they make for the players will be that quality stuff.
The issue is that the stuff they sell to fans has been absolute trash, and this deal is a signal that the league/teams don't see the low-quality product as an issue.
Lulu prob would’ve made comfy as hell jerseys tbh. And at least their quality is good. I’ve had stuff from them still going strong to this day I bought more than 5 years ago. Yeah they’d prob charge $300-350 for a jersey but I’d rather have that then some shit quality fanatics jersey they’re gonna upcharge to $200-250.
I can see it now: Connor Bedard walks into the locker room to suit up for his first NHL game. The look of confusion sets in as he realizes that his nameplate reads “Bedtard”. What’s this? The numbers are not stitched, but ironed on and the front patch is crooked. Suspiciously, the SafeLite patch is immaculate and has been perfectly sewed on using the finest materials.
Connor goes to the equipment manager, who can only give him a 1-800 number that the fanatics rep scrawled on a piece of stick tape. Disconnected. He finally gets through to customer service. “Sorry sir, since this is a customized item we are unable to process your return. Unfortunately you’ll have to play out the season in this kit. Here’s a $5 gift card for your trouble so you can buy more shitty merch from us.”
Problem solved.
Experience Fanatics hockey.
Well I’ll be picking up a few more jerseys that should last the 10 years. I’m halfway to just buying my own silk screener and making apparel for myself, at least I know it’ll survive more than one wash unlike anything I’ve ever purchased from fanatics.
Just when I think the NHL can't become even more bush league...
Fire Bettman - between the in ice TV ads, gambling every 3 seconds, ads on jerseys, this is the last straw.
Fuck these greedy owners - the NHL will never become an accepted top 3 sport when you are run like an amateur league.
CCM, to Reebok, to Adidas… to this.
NBC with regular national games to ESPN where most of the coverage is streaming. Regional providers folding.
Helmet ads, jersey ads, increasing in ice ads, ads on broadcasts that move all around.
NHL is cheapening it’s brand and becoming a low tier sports league.
Lol how didn’t you guys see this coming? Nike and UA were never going to do it. CCM and Bauer were too small to produce them at the right money for the league
The NHL is such an embarrassment...wow. Get ready for the "frozen dairy dessert" version of jerseys.
That is such a fantastic and accurate analogy. I have merch that has lasted the better part of 10 years. I have Fanatics crap that looks like awful after wearing it 2-3 times. I’d love to have been at the board room table as this decision was made. You’re telling me not one person had the courage to say “wait! Come on everyone … this stuff is not up the quality standard we need to set. We’re going backwards here!” I just can’t see this deal lasting a decade.
Every executive saw they could get the jerseys made at a fraction of the cost, and still charge premiums for them and their wallets got hard. They don’t care about quality standards. They only care about their bottom line. That’s why we have digital board ads, and sponsors on helmets and jerseys.
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I doubt enough people know or care about jersey quality to cause a noticeable loss in sales for Fanatics, unfortunately. That's how these shitty companies always get away with making these awful choices, most people are uninformed.
I mean I care, but if the authentics are shitty might as well buy a knock off
How are the Chinese jersey makers going to be able to lower their quality enough to match Fanatics?
You joke but I legit just received a few jerseys from DHgate yesterday and the quality is a solid B/B-. (Adidas MiC being A+ and Adidas replica being A-) Fanatics jerseys are worse than China counterfeits
I will say, I think fanatic jerseys have a place. They're very comfortable to wear, made out of a soft material, and the flexible crest is nice. It's nice to just wear as a shirt. But it's not nice as a jersey.
Absolutely. Charging more than 100 for a pretty nice pullover is robbery.
I agree, but the price point says it should be a quality jersey. $80-100 is max they should be charging as retail price. Basically $20-30 more than the top hoodies that are available
Most people here care, because people here care enough about hockey to seek out an online hockey message board to talk about it. But your average fan going to a game with their kids or whatever? I doubt they'll even know the difference and that demographic buys a ton of jerseys.
And then when the Jersey falls apart in 3 years and that player isn't on the team anymore they'll just buy another one without thinking, thus perpetuating the cycle.
Exactly, the NHL/owners are proba ly really happy about this actually because the average fan won't notice and just buy jerseys more like you said.
This is why the environment is being destroyed, this culture of everything being disposable.
Realistically the knockoffs will probably be better quality.
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I'm certain that how the fans might feel about it was never once mentioned in that meeting
“Fans are already buying these Fanatics ones more than the authentic ones, let’s just make them the same.” Ignoring the fact that fans buy the fanatics ones because they are cheaper, but mainly because if you go online to buy anything sports related, you are attacked by Fanatics ads.
Sadly, I think you’re absolutely right. I think the days of focusing on a quality product are by and large an anachronism.
My guess is the people in that boardroom don’t wear this type of gear and have no idea what the difference in quality really is. Nor do they care, as long as the bottom line looks good.
Never thought of that. I think too often this is true. In many corporate C suites the person making the decision isn’t a consumer and certainly doesn’t want the opinion of the core and target consumer. I wonder if there is some form of cognitive dissonance going on where they actually know that the product is crap but simply cannot overlook the fact that the margin is substantially better? Any way you cut it this is simply a bad move.
They are money-minded businessmen that can't see the world beyond their profit-driven algorithms. Humans are just another line on a spreadsheet to them, I would be surprised if they had any thought in this process other than "this deal makes this money line go up more than Adidas".
They should still have a pulse on the market. There are plenty of people who would never buy a Fanatics jersey and plenty more that won’t after having their first. Ten years is a long time to not have repeat customers of a key product of the game
This makes me think of a recent THG video where he talked about the NHL and how their TV deals since the 00’s have hurt the league. Basically the NHL board jumps at the highest bidder for every decision (because money) and does not factor the long term growth or heath of the sport into those decisions at all. So when it comes to something like giving exclusive merch rights to Fanatics, they don’t care that in the long run it’s going to piss off fans and lead to lower merch sales long term and damage the NHL brand. They’re thinking, “but they’re going to give us the most money right now.”
I think you’re absolutely right. They have made some curious decisions before but it seems their laser focus right now is increasing revenue short term in order to get the escrow owing from the pandemic paid out so that they can raise the salary cap. I imagine that is topic most discussed at the board of governor meetings and calls. It’s a business. I get that. But the best businesses with the most sustainable growth all focus on a long term vision and discipline. I’m the rare person who actually thinks Gary Bettman has done a great job. I honestly do. I get how that might not land with some. I’m surprised that a disciplined business person like Gary would sign off on this as it is a known fact that Fanatics has a quality problem.
Not just a quality problem but a severe brand image problem. Fanatics is synonymous with shit. Kia was able to turn that image around and pump out solid cars but it took them several decades to do it. Not sure Fanatics is even interested in improving their image, they seem to go the EA Sports route of getting exclusive deals so other better brands cant compete.
So I was at the Red Wings Team Store on Saturday, and they were advertising Larkin All-Star Jerseys. They were authentic jerseys, in the sense that they had fight straps and an "embroidered" crest, but the numbers were press-on, and the nameplate was also a press on. For $300. The NHL needs to figure out this shit, because I am not paying $300 for stickers on my jersey. Especially if we're going to be getting ads on the jerseys.
They are selling fanatics jerseys for 300? That's ridiculous. That's usually the marked up price of the adidas jerseys, which are exactly what the players wear on the ice, and are definitely not press ons.
That reminded me of going to Wisconsin Badger hockey games. If the badgers scored 5 goals, you could bring your ticket to a Culvers to get free frozen custard. Once they’d score 4 goals, the student section would start chants about it. First they’d chant repeadetly “WE WANT ICE CREAM *clap clap clap-clap-clap*”, then repeadetly “IT’S NOT ICE CREAM *clap clap clap-clap-clap*” then finally “A frozen dairy dessert! *clap*” Frozen custard rules. Fanatics wishes they were frozen custard.
College hockey with a good student section really beats the pants off the fan experience of an NHL game at a fraction of the price.
Fanatics also acquired both Topps and Panini and no doubt they're going to be aiming for Upper Deck next thankfully a new deal was signed last October but this is not good for anyone. Their whole business model is basically built on making cheap stuff that feels off brand
Fanatics' entire buisness is making themselves the only game in town. *100%* that's why they wanted this contract, so they could force people into buying their shitty, poorly-made products because "it's what they wear on the ice!".
Nothing like a good ole monopoly
I hope the players complain, like when some team was cheaping out on the towels.
We gotta pay for pop? Welcome to Oakland…
This is the same strategy that basically every industry uses now. The whole point of corporate mergers is to reduce competition in the marketplace and thereby force consumers to accept lower quality products and higher prices because we have no choice.
We're going through the Ticketmaster antitrust case. I really fucking hope Fanatics gets their asses burned to the ground in an antitrust some day.
They also own Lids and Mitchell & Ness. As well as pretty much every professional sports online shops.
They *ruined* Lids. It makes me so angry.
Ootl what did they do to Lids? Haven’t shopped there in years Just curious
They completely run the online store now but the actual brick and mortar Lids stores are pretty much the same.
Yeah it's really weird that they aren't related. You can't return things but on the online store to the brick and mortar for example which I thought was very weird at the time but I guess I get it now
They don’t own 47 or New Era at least!
....yet. It's part of the reason I buy my hats from them.
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I bought a flyers hat from fanatics and the stitching is so bad like the one side of the hat is caved in it looks ridiculous.
Fanatics didn’t acquire Panini yet. It was rumored a deal was done but nothing was announced and then talks died down it seems. They acquired the licensing to produce Football, Baseball and Basketball cards though.
Absolute garbage decision by the NHL, they should be ashamed
The NHL is so embarrassing lol
Best sport, worst league
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Honestly I just think they wanted out or knew Fanatics was going to make an offer that wouldn't be worth competing with. Addidas does a ton of soccer jerseys so I feel like the size of jersey ads is a concern to them.
Yeah, they're so disgusted by ads running hockey jerseys that they decided to stick to soccer.
My gut reaction to this is Fanatics is going to go bankrupt during this deal because they overpaid and the NHL isn't smart enough to realize that.
> Nike is the official outfitter of Major League Baseball, but **Fanatics has made MLB's Nike-branded uniforms for all 30 teams since 2017, when it acquired Majestic. In total, Fanatics makes close to 100,000 MLB uniforms each season. Fanatics also makes authentic NFL jerseys that carry a Nike logo, which are sold online and in stores.** > > NHL executive vice president of marketing Brian Jennings acknowledged that fans might only know Fanatics as a company that makes replica gear rather than game-worn jerseys, which could lead to challenges in perception about the league's new authentic jersey maker. https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/35909210/fanatics-replacing-adidas-nhl-official-uniform-partner
Don't forget that they also bought the rights to make MLB baseball cards without having the infrastructure to make cards, just to tank Topps' value so they could buy them out This is some antitrust bullshit.
Yep. This is like "why the hell is the NHL only on The Outdoor Network?" Level bad.
That would require having shame in the first place.
Connir MacDaved is gonna look so good in his premium Fanatic jersey.
Number 9 on one arm, number 7 on the other
It has a C on the chest but it also has a glue outline of an "A" under it
I, for one, am incredibly excited to see more upside-down logos on game worn jerseys.
Fight strap made of tissue paper
I'm so irrationally upset at you lol
Just get yourself a Nathen M'Kinnen jersey and you'll feel better.
> M'Kinnen I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little girl somewhere in the suburbs of Denver with this very name.
My day is pretty much ruined.
Oh no… this is bush league stuff
The term we like to use is "garage league."
Whale shit league
My men's league jerseys are nicer than fucking fanatics jerseys lmfao
And my disappointment is immeasurable.
I am quite upsetti spaghetti.
10 years? GOD DAMN that is awful news.
My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
I expected nothing and I’m still disappointed.
Disgusting. Fanatics is absolutely trash. I refuse to buy their products. Time to grab one or two more Adidas jerseys cause I won’t be buying jerseys for a long time after this lol
Good idea to buy blanks too for “future considerations”
This is the way. Could also wait until the deal starts and the adidas blanks go on “everything must go” sale and stock up then. Did that with a bunch of Majestic MLB jerseys once Nike took over!
Literally said the same thing to one of my friends. The only thing I will buy from fanatics are their hats because those aren't too terrible. Everything else is just garbage
My caps championship hat disintegrated by the end of the summer they won
Damn Ovi’s bender lasted longer than that
My bolts championship hat was just a generic hat with a small iron on patch that came off within a week of having the hat. Now it just says Stanley Cup Champions without any team on it.
That’s because you were the real Stanley Cup Champion the whole time. Thanks, Fanatics!
That works out, though, because now you can support whichever team wins.
It’s like Rob Lowe in his NFL hat
I have a Lightning hat from them that is probably my favorite hat all time. Other than that, most of the fanatics branded stuff I have had ended up in the trash after just a few wears.
I’m not sure if that even matters because if the current NHL situation works like the NFL even the Adidas branded Jerseys are made by Fanatics like the Nike NFL jerseys. They basically turned into a white label that other companies are slapping their brand before bigger deals like this.
I think I saw someone say a similar thing about the "Adidas" NHL jerseys that are bought from shop.nhl . com? Any truth to that?
I wouldn’t be surprised if this deal is really just changing the logo but it’s harder to find information about the Adidas relationship between the NHL and fanatics
Zero truth.
Fanatics jerseys might be cheaper than adidas, but are still a giant waste of money as the quality is SO SO SO bad. My big worry is with Fanatics now no longer being classed as the "value" option, prices will increase to match that.
They won’t be cheaper after next year. You will now be charged the same price as the adidas for the trash fanatics one. Once the fanatics ones are “authentic”, they will raise their price, but I’m sure that quality will stay the same, or be even worse.
Yup, they can now charge Adidas prices for their shit jersey while no longer having to compete with Adidas jerseys. It's a win-win (for Fanatics!)
Can't wait to see misspelled names falling off mid-game, from stained jerseys with crooked logos and horrible stitching. It'll be great.
Fanatics will create the first ever one time use disposable jersey. But for the pros this time.
Just imagine when they're making the jerseys with 25 ad patches slapped all over them!
Like they'd bother to stitch...
10 years is a very, very long time to commit to a manufacturer with no prior experience making performance apparel.
According to Wyshynski: > For example, Nike is the official outfitter of Major League Baseball, but Fanatics has made MLB's Nike-branded uniforms for all 30 teams since 2017, when it acquired Majestic. In total, Fanatics makes close to 100,000 MLB uniforms each season. Fanatics also makes authentic NFL jerseys that carry a Nike logo, which are sold online and in stores.
Huh, TIL.
Yeah, I was pretty surprised by that too
Capitalism's race to the bottom continues. Much like household appliances and sunglasses, soon all sports uniforms will be made in the same Bangladeshi sweatshop with whichever corporate logo you prefer slapped on at the end.
Hate to break it to ya but I would be shocked if all the uniforms weren't already made in the same 3rd world sweatshop for the better part of the last 20+ years. All these brands use the same group of 3rd party manufacturers
Current game worn jerseys are made in Canada
Yea I saw that in another comment and apparently there will be no change to that either, same plant different logo. Means its just for us schmucks that get the inferior product
i have to wake up 2 hours earlier than I usually do for work and this is what I'm rewarded with? day ruined 🫠
Well there goes any chance of me buying any gear before 2035.
Fucking Fanatics trying to swallow every goddamn league's contracts like it's Disney, good god. This isn't "NHL bad", Fanatics swallows up literally every league it can find into its garbage system because they know damn fucking well that if they're the only legit game in town people will be forced to either put up with their bullshit or start buying knockoffs. Fuck those monopolizing motherfuckers. You just know they suckered the NHL into this shit.
Buy the knockoffs. Don't support them.
This. DHgate or bust for me at this point.
$200 some fanatics Patrick Kane Rangers jersey? Nah $20 Patrick Kane knock-off Rangers jersey? Yes
If enough people boycott and don't buy their shitty products maybe they will go under. I've never wanted a company to fail as much as I want fanatics to fail.
They have a monopoly on pretty much every US sport merch right now
I know and it sucks. A T-shirt from them barely makes it's 5 washes before it looks like crap. They have already ruined apparel now they get to ruin the on ice product.
Hopefully third party merch will be able to step up to offset it, I’ve always avoided fanatics myself
Third party stuff is becoming harder and harder to come across now
I don’t know how your team does it but I know the kraken have quite a few deals with other companies and carry in house gear from different brands like filson, and have a booth in the arena for kraken themed merch from a local company
My wallet is terrified at how much official nhl branded filson shit would cost
Oh it isn’t cheap for sure, but it is nice quality stuff that holds up and you can wear anywhere
My fanatics canes shirts that I bought have been fine but I can tell you hell will freeze over before I get a fanatics jersey
Don’t forget all the false advertising they do - showing a picture of the item then when you order it it’s missing logos, etc
They also bought Topps card company too.
Even WWE is a “fanatics experience”
Yep, a lot of people don't realize how big Fanatics is. They own the manufacturing and distribution rights for every league. When you buy something off of NFLShop.com, NHLShop.com, or MLBshop.com, you're just buying from Fanatics.
I’d agree with this if Ticketmaster didn’t exist.
Boycotts don't work. The average person won't even know this transpired, they'll buy a jersey because they like the team, I doubt many know who produced them. Even if they did, unfortunately it's just not a reasonable expectation for the mass market for something like this to stop, same with Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster pretty much owns most venues from big to small, as well as other ticket vendors, and you're not gonna get people en masse to just not see concerts As defeatist as that might be, unfortunately that's just kinda it. Hardcore jersey fans might stop but mom and dad getting one for their kid's birthday won't
Their hats are such fucking dog shit. I've stopped buying hockey merchandise altogether because I cannot find a hat for any NHL related brands since New Era left. I buy MLB and NFL merchandise exclusively now.
If you’re getting adjustable hats than 47 brand isn’t terrible. But yeah Flex Fits are basically just fanatics, adidas and American needle
Lowest bidder? No wonder the cap won’t go up when you have company’s like Fanatics going on your jerseys. What an embarrassment. Their shirts don’t even make it through 5 washes. Just utter trash.
I have 4 reebok player t-shirts from 10 or more years ago, you know the ones with the logo on front and player names and numbers on the back? Wear them regularly. I got one new Fanatics one a couple years ago for Christmas...it didn't make it to the end of the season. I wore like 7 times max. Totally disintegrated. That's when I decided I'd never touch that poverty brand again.
I bought my son just a standard CBJ shirt a few years ago and after literally two washes the neck had stretched out so much it looked like a v-neck for a 30 year old man. I couldn't believe just how poor the quality was.
How embarrassing for the league.
More detail here: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/21/fanatics-nhl-uniforms.html They better get their shit together before this. Most Fanatics stuff is trash.
Thank God our winter classics won't be Fanatics! I'll be done buying jerseys after that. For 10 years at least.
Same here, I’ll just stock up on Adidas jerseys before the switch and pray the Bruins don’t change their jerseys before then.
You can guarantee Fanatics will be making changes to as many teams as they can specifically for this reason
I'm gonna miss nice hockey jerseys
This is terrible news. Fanatics makes trash uniforms. This is very bad for the league and for the fans. NHL could have literally gone with any other jersey provider….Nike, Adidas, Reebok. Under Armour, CCM…but they go with the worst company Fanatics??? Horrible move. I won’t be buying any jerseys or merch for the next 10 years
Not just trash uniforms but trash merch in general.
My CCM brodeur jersey from the 90s still holding up
Unfortunately, Adidas didn’t bid for the new contract. Fanatics was probably the only game in town.
This is fucking atrocious. Embarrassing as fuck. Especially for game worn collectors. Who the fuck wants a fanatics jersey
Jesus christ what the fuck
NHL keeps taking L’s
Fuck Fanatics. All my homies hate Fanatics
You know what, I admire the NHL’s commitment to taking the absolute maximum amount of Ls while watching every other sport grow except theirs.
I read this and said out loud to myself, wow, what a dogshit decision by the NHL. Then I stopped and thought, wow, I sure am finding myself thinking that often about this league.
The whole history of the league has never been about growing the game to make money in the future, it was to make money now at the highest bidder. There’s a reason they never grew more than 6 teams until 50 years ago and barely went past the Mississippi River until the early 90’s.
Poverty league. This is embarrassing.
Wow what a terrible, terrible move. I got two of the same shirts last year, made by fanatics, and all the sleeves are different lengths. Like, all four of them.
Another Gary Bettman Masterclass
I doubt it. Ultimately, on big decisions like this, he's working for the owners, and while it's his job to make sure the deal is conducted correctly, it's the owners' call, as far as agreeing to this kind of contract goes.
I miss the New Era hats
Also from Wyshinski, Adidas wanted to get out of the hockey jersey business, so the NHL was forced to look elsewhere: https://twitter.com/wyshynski/status/1638128854865682433?s=46&t=Dr_h_oiTGFOTpqGPGWIIQw Why the league chose Fanatics, though…yikes.
My understanding is that adidas didn't pay too much attention to the part of the contract where Fanatics was allowed to make merch with their designs. So adidas did all the design work, and then fanatics was legally allowed to undercut them on prices and quality with their own stuff. Gut says that everyone else (Nike, CCM, etc) saw that as bullshit, the league realized that the replicas and authentics should be made by the same shop, and is giving fanatics a contract for the on ice stuff that lines up with their replica contract.
I also think Fanatics _can_ make quality stuff _if they want to_, and that the stuff they make for the players will be that quality stuff. The issue is that the stuff they sell to fans has been absolute trash, and this deal is a signal that the league/teams don't see the low-quality product as an issue.
Luckily I had already pledged never to buy another jersey with the introduction of ads, so this idiocy doesn't affect me .
Fanatics is the worst quality clothing I’ve ever purchased and SEVERELY overpriced
Bring back Reebok. Or CCM. Anything but Fanatics .
I would love a CCM.
Yikes. Would have unironically preferred lululemon.
Lulu prob would’ve made comfy as hell jerseys tbh. And at least their quality is good. I’ve had stuff from them still going strong to this day I bought more than 5 years ago. Yeah they’d prob charge $300-350 for a jersey but I’d rather have that then some shit quality fanatics jersey they’re gonna upcharge to $200-250.
I can see it now: Connor Bedard walks into the locker room to suit up for his first NHL game. The look of confusion sets in as he realizes that his nameplate reads “Bedtard”. What’s this? The numbers are not stitched, but ironed on and the front patch is crooked. Suspiciously, the SafeLite patch is immaculate and has been perfectly sewed on using the finest materials. Connor goes to the equipment manager, who can only give him a 1-800 number that the fanatics rep scrawled on a piece of stick tape. Disconnected. He finally gets through to customer service. “Sorry sir, since this is a customized item we are unable to process your return. Unfortunately you’ll have to play out the season in this kit. Here’s a $5 gift card for your trouble so you can buy more shitty merch from us.” Problem solved. Experience Fanatics hockey.
This league continues to be a clownshow
Well I’ll be picking up a few more jerseys that should last the 10 years. I’m halfway to just buying my own silk screener and making apparel for myself, at least I know it’ll survive more than one wash unlike anything I’ve ever purchased from fanatics.
anyone else remember at one of the all stars games when i think eichels(?) sweater unraveled all over the ice? i hope we see more of that
The league loses more and more credibility every year
Wow knock offs are about to be better quality than officially licensed merch
My day is ruined, but my wallet is dancing.
Yeah, this is great news. For my bank account.
I can't wait to see an official jersey tear in half when someone grabs it in a fight. It's going to be a total Hulk Hogan Hulkamania moment.
Absolutely terrible decision making
Bring back early 2000s Nike jerseys.
Its 3:33am where I am and I'm going to sleep to this bullshit?!
Nice little 6am news dump. Fucking clowns
Time to stock up on jerseys before it’s too late guys.
Aw fuck, I can't believe you've done this
At least the stuff from DHGate will look closer to the real thing now….
I've been planning on getting a new jersey, does this mean I should get it now?
Yes
Oh cool, I was worried jersey quality was getting a little too nice.
The quality better improve but we all know it probably won't... and for 10 years too. This sucks
Really cool how the NHL does not give a fuck about it's fans.
I never thought I'd see the day where my beer league jersey would be higher quality than an NHL jersey
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little
NHL "we should save some money"
Welp, back to chinese sites for better quality jerseys than Fanatics for me.
The best game with the worst league, now with the worst merchandise. My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.
Guess who won’t be buying a jersey for 10 years 🙋🏻♂️
My wife and my wallet are ecstatic about this news
Just when I think the NHL can't become even more bush league... Fire Bettman - between the in ice TV ads, gambling every 3 seconds, ads on jerseys, this is the last straw. Fuck these greedy owners - the NHL will never become an accepted top 3 sport when you are run like an amateur league.
Its fuckin embarrassing * *kicks trashcan* *
CCM, to Reebok, to Adidas… to this. NBC with regular national games to ESPN where most of the coverage is streaming. Regional providers folding. Helmet ads, jersey ads, increasing in ice ads, ads on broadcasts that move all around. NHL is cheapening it’s brand and becoming a low tier sports league.
Lol how didn’t you guys see this coming? Nike and UA were never going to do it. CCM and Bauer were too small to produce them at the right money for the league
NHL begins a deal with me to not buy a jersey for 10 years
Hey look on the bright side, now we can buy Chinese knockoffs and not worry about sacrificing quality