What happens to the already printed Chiefs AFC merchandise? | Kansas City Chiefs

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) – It’s a gamble, like rolling the dice.

If the Chiefs were to win Sunday night, it would have meant big business for AFC Championship merchandise that would have been flying off the shelves.

Now vendors and local companies are taking a loss.

Walking into the Kansas Sampler Monday, Chiefs shirts are still everywhere.

But the team’s playoff run stopped with the shirts, highlighting our game against the Patriots as well as AFC West Division Championship hats.

“All of our 2018-2019 post season AFC Champion shirts that we didn’t get to put out last night,” Paul Grossman, Chief Operating Officer said.

The back of the store is where 150 sealed boxes of freshly printed Chiefs shirts and hats will now stay.

“We buy enough for after the game, the people who want one,” Grossman voiced.

And Monday, they were expecting to get more from NFL licensed print shops such as Game Time Graphics in Independence.

“All this is our inventory which they told us don’t open anything until it’s over or until they won,” David Curtis, General Manager, Game Time Graphics said.

Curtis and his employees would have been printing shirts all night.

“Anywhere between 7-10,000 units. For the first big run,” Curtis stated.

Curtis prints on demand, the only loss he incurs is for his time.

The blank shirts will be sent back to their vendor Fanatics, where they could be used for something else.

“It would be a huge economic boost for the area, not just for the printers but the retailers, everybody,” Curtis said.

That holds true, Rally House shops including Kansas Sampler will eat some of the cost, they will also split the loss with their vendor Fanatics.

But what happens to the already printed shirts? Where do they go?

Paul Grossman is still waiting on that answer.

“Some will ship back, and they will discard, some will tell us just to discard them,” Paul Grossman, Chief Operating Officer said.

That means they could have to destroy them, but sometimes they are sent out to third world countries.

KCTV5 reached out to Fanatics to find out, there is no word on that yet.

Big stores like Academy Sports will also send their merchandise back to Fanatics.

Dicks Sporting Goods, they work with World Vision, and those shirts will be donated to countries in need.

If the Chiefs won Sunday night, Rally House and Kansas Sampler would have paid full price for the shirts and they would have sold a lot more than just 150 boxes worth of merchandise.

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