Once the final whistle is blown at the Super Bowl, fans make a mad dash to the merch table to rep their team’s new championship title.
This instant gear is available because the NFL pre-orders thousands of hats, hoodies, shirts and other memorabilia, declaring both — yes, both — teams as the sole winner.
But only one team’s merchandise ever sees the light of day, at least in the U.S.
The NFL has been making Super Bowl winner apparel in advance for years, and up until 1997, they simply destroyed the loser’s merch, per Fast Company. But in recent decades, the organization has found a more eco-friendly and socially responsible way to use the defunct gear.
So, what will happen to the losing team’s merch after Super Bowl 2025? Read on to learn more about where all those hoodies and hats actually go after the championship winner is announced.
What does the NFL do with the losing team’s Super Bowl merch?
Zach Pascal.
Rob Carr/Getty
After 1997, nonprofit World Vision approached the NFL and pitched a collaboration wherein they would help donate the losing Super Bowl team’s merch to people in need outside of the U.S.
In 2015, the nonprofit Good360 took over the partnership, collecting the unused clothing and distributing it to communities abroad. The Virginia-based organization also partners with Major League Baseball to repurpose the losing team’s gear from the World Series.
“Sunday evening when the whistle blows, the NFL wants to make sure whoever wins has at their fingertips a hat or a T-shirt,” then-Good360 CEO Romaine Seguin told Fast Company in 2024. “So we aggregate the non-winner merchandise and get it into the hands of a child who can use the hat to keep the sun out of their eyes, or a shirt to keep them warm at night.”
How much merch is donated?
Super Bowl LVIII merchandise from the Kansas City Chiefs.
Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty
Good360’s then-Chief Marketing Officer Shari Rudolph told the Los Angeles Times in 2022 that “only a few thousand items” are donated from each championship event that produces merchandise ahead of time.
Compared to the $1.3 billion in donations the organization handled in 2021, the pile of defunct Super Bowl gear is relatively small.
Can you buy the losing team’s merch?
Super Bowl LVI Champions hat.
Kevin C. Cox/Getty
No, fans can’t officially purchase NFL-produced gear that incorrectly declares their team as Super Bowl champions. The league has strict protocols in place to ensure the general public never sees the non-winning franchise’s attire, according to a 2024 post on Good360’s blog.
Those protocols include working with pre-vetted partners and sending donations to communities outside the U.S. — though Rudolph didn’t confirm exactly where in 2022.
“With this donation it’s a bit sensitive, so we don’t disclose the exact locations they go,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “What I can say is they end up in countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America.”
The NFL goes through this process to keep the losing team’s merchandise out of the hands of resellers and collectors who could profit. In 2022, a shirt declaring the Cincinnati Bengals as Super Bowl XXIII champions — even though they lost to the San Francisco 49ers — was listed on eBay for $10,000.
What happens to the losing team’s Super Bowl confetti?
Carlton Davis.
Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty
Tees and hats aren’t the only Super Bowl items the NFL preps without knowing the winner. At the end of the game, confetti in the winning team’s colors is dropped onto the field in celebration.
Opposing teams occasionally share a similar color scheme, but when they don’t, two separate batches are made in advance.
Michael Fiur, the executive producer of the Super Bowl Post Game/Lombardi Trophy Presentation, told Live Design Online in 2015 that the confetti is made of 98% recycled post-industrial materials. So, after the big game, the losing Super Bowl team’s confetti is returned to the manufacturer, where it can be recycled and reused.
