A lot of time, money and work goes into creating championship gear for the two teams competing in the World Series. Major League Baseball itself wants the gear for the winning team immediately available to consumers as well as the players as soon as said team clinches the title.
The same can be said in the NFL, NHL and NBA worlds.
It had been common practice for these leagues to donate the gear that they made for the losing team in the past. After all, not a single consumer is willing to buy a hat that reads “Cleveland Indians, 2016 World Series champs.” That’s not the way it works. And that took center stage when the Chicago Cubs broke their 100-plus year drought to defeat Cleveland in Game 7 of the World Series last week.
Now, Major Leaue Baseball itself has indicated that it plans on destroying the Indians’ World Series title merchandise rather than donating it to charity.
“In past years we have used World Vision, but we have moved our policy to destroying the merchandise,” MLB’s Matt Bourne told the Huffington Post recently . “The reason is to protect the team from inaccurate merchandise being available or visible in the general marketplace.”
It makes sense in that MLB doesn’t want to misrepresent the actual outcome fo the 2016 World Series. Though, these donations had in the past gone to third-world countries where poor populations were the benefactors. The fact that MLB isn’t donating these goods to charity can be seen as a bad look. Though, it is completely understandable.