What will happen to Super Bowl 2022 championship gear made for the Cincinnati Bengals?

The Cincinnati Bengals lost to the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI, but their pre-printed championship gear finds a second life elsewhere.

Sporting good stores in Southern California and everywhere in the United States have merchandise adorned with “Los Angeles Rams Super Bowl Champions” ready to sell moments after the Super Bowl.

On the other hand, merchandise with the words “Cincinnati Bengals Super Bowl Champions” will not see its day in the U.S.

The fate of Cincinnati Bengals Super Bowl championship gear

The NFL pre-manufactures Super Bowl gear for good reason, to take advantage of fan emotions when their team wins the big game. Moments after the clock ticks down to 0:00, demand for merchandise of the winning team is perhaps at its peak.

For the team that did not win the Super Bowl, however, that gear gets shipped off outside of the U.S. and overseas.

Before 1997, the NFL just trashed the losing teams’ merchandise. According to Yahoo! Sports, the league utilizes one charity, Good360, to redistribute the excess (and inaccurate) merchandise.

The gear is sent throughout the world to impoverished countries who might have a need for clothing.

Instead of destroying the t-shirts, hats, and other apparel, the NFL donates the merchandise free of charge. The league avoids selling the alternate reality clothing to circumvent fan confusion and to avoid diluting the winning team’s victory.

NFL merchandise

The NFL also does not want any “Cincinnati Bengals Super Bowl Champions” t-shirts in circulation in the U.S. because fans might see it as a joke when the league is absolute in recognizing the hard-fought victory of the Los Angeles Rams.

The league keeps a lot of things secret, and evidence of the losing team’s pre-printed apparel is not widely available. Once in a while, photos will leak online of the alternate reality t-shirts of the losing team.

For example, when the Seattle Seahawks beat the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014, some photos of t-shirts that had “Denver Broncos Super Bowl Champions” made its way onto the Internet.

The deepest cut of alternate reality merchandise might be the year that the New England Patriots were to go a perfect 19-0. They just had to beat the heavy underdog New York Giants in 2008.

Alas, the Patriots infamously lost to Eli Manning and the Giants, and some photos were leaked online of kids wearing Patriots’ “19-0 Super Bowl Champions” t-shirts in Nicaragua.

The 2008 Patriots' losing merchandise made its way to Nicaragua | Credit: AP

For the Cincinnati Bengals, the Super Bowl loss definitely stings, but at least their alternate reality apparel is getting good, important use out in the multiverse.