Seriously, what is this dusty blue? Gray? Trying too hard for a blue-gray sky reference?

While our new Loyal Daughter and fashion maven, Molly, already gave her take on The Shirt, the review was missing just a little something: a rant on the ever-changing color of the damn thing.

Well, never fear Loyal Readers, I will take the reigns for this annual angst.

For those that haven’t seen us complain about this in the past, especially Biscuit. Here’s the simple synopsis: The Shirt needs to stay one color (blue or green–pick one and never, EVER do “gold” again) so that, eventually, ND fans will fill the stadium with it and, you know, look unified. Which interestingly enough, is a mission of the project:

UNIFY

Within Notre Dame Stadium, The Shirt can be seen as a common thread uniting not only the students, but all fans in one solid color. A sea of same-colored Shirts gives the opposing team a “twelfth man” to fear.

So they are saying the same thing that we are, yet the color changes every year to make this as hard as possible. The common reason for this: the color needs to change so people have a reason to buy a new Shirt every year (because, apparently, promoting that this helps fund a good cause isn’t enough).

I’ve never bought this logic at all. I’ve always wanted to get some sales numbers to prove this theory as well. This year, thanks to The Shirt’s timeline feature on their site, I have them. Behold:

My favorite part of this data? The biggest increase in sales came from Ty’s campaign to create a “Sea of Green” in the stadium. The Ty-era was also the only time the exact same colored shirt was featured in consecutive years. The result? Only a small decrease in sales…which was then followed by a crappier green color on the heels of even crappier football.

The next two largest jumps happened during the Weis-era. The first was when he took over and the second was when The Shirt shifted back to more traditional color in navy blue after The Shirt did its best Michigan impression the year before. Of course, because we just can’t keep The Shirt the same blue, it reverted back to a green and saw a sharp decline of 20,000 units sold and the numbers continued to declined as did his teams’ performance.

Kelly brought back bigger sales numbers and excitement when he took the reigns. 2011’s rather untraditional royal blue look ended up being the best selling Shirt of all time (I think how it popped on TV helped, personally). Sticking with blue didn’t help though as going back to navy blue saw another decline followed by a minor up-tick in sales after Kelly’s team had a national title berth.

So what does all this mean? Simply put, it doesn’t really look like the color change really helps sales numbers. Further, even in its biggest year, The Shirt only sold 165,000 units. Now, that’s not a number to scoff at; however, when you consider that you want 80,000-plus wearing the same color, that goal falls well short, especially since no one is wearing that same type of blue from any jersey or previous shirt. If we assume that around half the stadium’s attendees are the same people, you are looking another 280,000 or so for a total of 320,000 people in the stadium annually.

I’m sure that estimation is likely on the larger size, but the point stands that you are likely trying to clothe over 200,000 people in the same thing. One year of sales simply doesn’t hit that number.

Say what you will about Ty, but his push for the “Sea of Green” put 252,000 kelly green shirts in the hands of Irish fans. When you then consider that kelly green is a color that ND fans likely own beyond The Shirt, there is actually a better chance that said color uniformity will actually exist.

Even with that success in the uniformity goal, The Shirt went to the aforementioned pale green color that saw sales dive. However, that wasn’t the biggest mistake. Once Ty left, The Shirt, changed color completely. Ugly urine-yellow aside, that change made the “Sea of Green” Ty’s thing and not The Shirt’s thing or even the fan’s thing. The Shirt had a golden opportunity to take a stand for fan unity and instead delivered a yellow that couldn’t be further from the gold that graces the Dome.

So, please, stop this multi-color madness. Pick a color, stick with it, and most importantly own it. This is a student-led project, meaning it’s a fan-led project–by the fans, for the fans. Promote the hell out of the charitable endeavors The Shirt benefits, pour over designs and slogans* like crazy and make that your change. Just leave the color be.

*And can we not crib a WWE campaign next year? I’m as a big a wrestling fan as anyone, but come on now…

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Ryan Ritter

Editor-in-Chief
Texan by birth, Irish by choice.

First-generation Domer and a former student manager, HLS podcast host, HLS Sim creator, Extra Life streamer, and technical problem haver. You can find more non-Notre Dame related writing on his Patreon.

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