Nostalgia and Retromarketing in Professional Sports
If you haven’t had the chance to follow your favorite sports team in a long time, you would be surprised to find out that there is a fairly good chance that the team is playing in the “old-time” jerseys that the franchise wore back in older generations. Welcome to the retro age, where sports franchises are increasingly pursuing the idea of wearing logos and jersey styles of the past, with some teams even adopting the style as their permanent look. This begs the question of “why”; why is valuable time and money being put into this “vintage jersey” phenomenon? What possible benefits could there be to plastering 1980s logos onto the courts and jerseys of modern athletes? Why are franchises bringing back what is now dead?... or is it?
Sports marketers are always on the hunt for new ideas that can bring in more revenue for professional sports leagues and their associated teams, and it can be said with little doubt that they hit the jackpot with throwback jerseys making it onto the public scene. Throwback jerseys have made it a long way since its first appearance. Initially intended to commemorate anniversaries of a league, such as when “the NFL was celebrating its 75th season in 1994” (Merchant), throwback jerseys are now much more common, with requirements in leagues such as the NFL and NHL that order teams to wear throwback uniforms two and fifteen games, respectively, in the regular season. Now, how exactly did sports marketers hit the jackpot? The answer remains in the confusing yet brilliant aspects of retro marketing, and in particular, retro branding.
Retro marketing is when businesses evoke a sense of nostalgia to consumers by bringing ideas from the past into the present; Similarly, retro branding is when businesses, or sports franchises, utilize past ideas in direct relation to the perception that the public has on the brand’s image. In this particular case, we focus on vintage jerseys. With sports franchises’ decisions to equip athletes in vintage jerseys and repaint courts and fields to match the styles of the past, teams are reviving positive memories within the minds of older generations; given the opportunity to tell their sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters about the good times when sports greats such as Hank Aaron and Ken Griffey Jr. stepped onto the diamond, parents and grandparents reminisce about the past, “painting athletes out to be heroes, and heroes they were indeed” (Hunt), if you ask any true sports fan. In return, teams are delighted that the consumers of the sport are more than willing to spend upwards of $350 for authentic on-field throwback jerseys of their favorite players. However, despite the success of this retro marketing industry, a great number of questions remain as to how these jerseys sell at such an alarming rate. In fact, it’s gotten so large to the point that retro jerseys as a whole may surpass the sales of modern-time jerseys in as little as a decade.
Nostalgia is a very broad idea and is almost always misused and misinterpreted in the daily dialogues of life. Many people associate nostalgia to only negative feelings that arise when one feels lonely and wishes to go back to the” good, old days”. However, this is not the case. “The word nostalgia is derived from the two Greek words of ‘nostos‘ and ‘algia’” (Batcho); ‘nostos-‘ meaning ‘return’, and ‘-algia’ translating to ‘suffering’. So, while society tends to relate to only the negativity associated with nostalgia, people are always unconsciously on the lookout for the positive. This is where they seek a return, although temporary, to the past, whether or not they are truly suffering from the depression or loneliness associated with comparing the good of the past and the bad of the present.
It is obvious that ideas of past membership are key to evoking nostalgia, such as the time when you and your fraternity brothers had a crazy party in college to the time when you became a part of a new family on your wedding day. However, when you were not even alive to watch the championship run of Earvin Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the 1980s, and are unable to relate with your parents’ admiration for their time’s superstars, what nostalgia is there that resonates with you? Surprisingly, there is a lot of room for nostalgia even for a time before your presence, according to studies performed by Guangzhi Zhao of the Journal of Promotion Management. Despite fans believing that they cannot relate to older generations’ interests, social media, without them even knowing it, plays a great factor in forcing knowledge of the past into current memory. Ruling out the tight-knit group of people who completely cut off all social media from their daily routine, a rarity in this day and age, people are stuffed with random revelations of the past, such as Jason Williams highlights played on repeat on a Facebook feed, or Wayne Gretzky’s stats being compared to Alex Ovechkin’s stats on an Instagram post. Whether you like it or not, that 1988 Detroit Pistons jersey that was just released at your local store will haunt you in your sleep as you debate whether to purchase it, until you finally decide to pull the trigger on the jersey and even more random throwback apparel… because why the heck not.
Another aspect of the popularity of throwback jerseys is the “classic look” that teenagers of this generation find great interest in. With the main home and away jerseys of the current season being the most common for both the athletes and fans to sport, people seek out vintage jerseys almost as a special or limited-edition jersey that either evokes the classic look or is unique to a certain clique. The visually appealing characteristic of throwback apparel is a main reason that the merchandise is bought, and fans come back to spend their money every time a new line of throwbacks are released. With this in mind, teams use a method of manipulation, otherwise known as advertising, to reach fans and “persuade” them to buy apparel.
Gameday promotions have been common in the world of sports for a very long time. But only recently did sports teams begin to incorporate retro themes to their promotions. For example, the St. Louis Cardinals recently handed out bobbleheads of all-time great shortstop Ozzie Smith to the first 10,000 fans entering the stadium, and the San Francisco 49ers have stocked up on former MVP Joe Montana shirts to give to every child under the age of 12 at one of their home games last season. In addition, teams such as the Portland Trail Blazers have implemented fun twists on gamedays where fans are permitted photo and autograph opportunities with actual players of the championship team from more than four decades ago.
On days like these more than others, merchandise booths in the stadium promote retro jerseys, slightly reducing the retail price and placing them out in the walkway for fans to see as they stroll around the arena. With temptations such as these and teams’ abilities to manipulate through nostalgia for the past, it’s tough to pass up on a well-priced jersey on gameday as you root on your hometown team.
Amongst the abundance of positives associated with vintage jerseys, there are risks and downfalls, as with any business strategy. By releasing too many variations of jerseys, the number of fans who are interested in each jersey decreases little by little, until none of the jerseys are selling near the quantity that was produced. This is based on the general principle that more change results in limited impact. With this, time, resources, and money are wasted as the jerseys are not sold, and when the players of the jerseys are traded, released, or retire, the interest in the jerseys plummet. Eventually, they go to waste. In addition to the issue of too much, there are times when marketers of teams simply fail to understand what style of apparel fans are looking to wear. For instance, if a team has ever relocated to a different city, their fans may not be fond of the team wearing uniforms of the past location because of issues related to hometown pride. Also, marketers fail to understand that some jerseys are not very visually appealing to the public. While fans relish most of the chances to represent their teams, many are not big on the idea of publicly sporting a black and yellow horizontal pinstripe jersey with an enlarged number engraved on the front and back…aka the Pittsburgh Steelers bumblebee throwbacks. As odd as it may seem, sports marketers could take a few tips from fashion extraordinaires when deciding which alternate jerseys go up for sale.
Whether you wish to think of life as a solely money-driven economy or not, you cannot deny the truth that professional sports teams are in it for financial gain when they schedule for vintage jerseys to be worn on specific days. However, don’t let that distract you from rooting on your favorite team while decked out in apparel. Everything in a commercial economic system, like that of the United States, is associated with the art of sales, whether it be the selling of ideas, goods, or services, and this is no different. The retro jersey business is on the exponential rise, and nobody can say that they see any signs of it stopping in the near, or distant, future.
Bibliography:
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Merchant, A., & Rose, G. (2013). Effects of advertising-evoked vicarious nostalgia on brand heritage. Journal of Business Research
Zhao, G., Li, W., Teng, L., & Lu, T. (2014). Moderating role of consumer self-concept on the effectiveness of two nostalgia appeals. Journal of Promotion Management
Chi, T. & Kilduff, P. (2011). Understanding consumer perceived value of casual sportswear: An empirical study. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services
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Fairley, Sheranne. “In Search of Relived Social Experience: Group-Based Nostalgia Sport Tourism.” Journal of Sport Management, vol. 17, no. 3, July 2003. EBSCOhost
Steelers Throwback Jersey. Digital image. VIP Elite Jersey. 13 May 2008, https://www.vipelitejersey.com/?SubID=cheapsuperbowljerseys.com_pittsburgh-steelers_
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Charlotte Hornets Throwback Court. Digital Image. Uni Watch. 8 August 2018, https://uni-watch.com/2018/08/08/even-more-buzz-charlotte-hornets-unveil-throwback-court/