Africa: The Alternate Sports Universe
So you know when you watch the Super Bowl and the winning team, immediately after the game is over, gets their brand new Championship T-shirts? Well, in order to do that, T-shirts have to be printed for both teams. But both teams can’t win, obviously, so what do you do with the T-shirts that say a team is a champion when they are not a champion? You send them to Africa!
You get rid of your worthless shirts and make a charitable donation at the same time. Classic two birds with one stone.
I have seen several of these T-shirts around, but I finally had the presence of mind to take a picture of one of them instead of just standing there and being confused. This shirt is particularly awesome because it says “Perfect Season” in huge letters when, in fact, the Patriots’ season was not perfect and they blew it in the Super Bowl. Instead of an amazing 19-0, they finished the season with a pedestrian 18-1. Tough luck, losers.
So, apparently this practice has been going on for several years, because I have seen similar shirts for the Chicago Bears in 2006 and Philadelphia Eagles in 2004. Africa is now the Alternate Universe for sports in which losers become winners. Somewhere there is an African kid that thinks the Buffalo Bills are the greatest football team of the 20th century. I’m not going to tell him, though, everyone should have a dream.
