On Wednesday evening in Los Angeles, Steven Mena, founder of streetwear label Menace, was finalising designs on his computer for a run of graphic T-shirts inspired by the Los Angeles Dodgers. He’d been creating graphics non-stop since the Dodgers won the National League Championship the previous Sunday.
His plan: Get the T-shirts printed that evening, pick them up at midnight after finishing this interview with The Business of Fashion, shoot the product on his iPhone on Thursday and then release the T-shirts on his web store on Friday, just in time for the start of the World Series the same day. It’s set to be baseball’s biggest championship in decades, pitting the Dodgers against the New York Yankees, two teams with a historic rivalry representing the US’ most iconic cities and showcasing two of baseball’s most exciting players, the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani.
“It’s just one of these moments we’re probably not going to see happen for a long time,” said Mena, hours after unveiling a teaser video for the collection on Instagram.
With teams from two fashion capitals set to compete in a high-profile showdown, brands have been racing to take advantage. Polo Ralph Lauren and Madhappy were among those fortunate enough to release official Yankees collaborations during postseason games in October, but other brands are finding unique ways to create merch and marketing moments even without being official team partners.
None of Menace’s T-shirts, for example, are officially licensed merchandise. While Mena said he’s reached out to the league for partnerships in the past, he’s never received a response. Instead, the shirts feature art such as an airbrushed graphic of Los Angeles in Dodgers colours. Similarly, streetwear label Awake will release a T-shirt for pre-order in a Yankees colour palette that takes a jab at Dodgers fans. Los-Angeles based sportswear brand Undefeated is hosting viewing parties at a local bar in partnership with Nike and Union Los Angeles.
While brands from Gucci to Supreme have long used baseball team logos — especially the Yankees — the sport itself hasn’t always received so much attention from fashion brands, even as they’ve increasingly looked to sports generally as a marketing platform.
“This World Series is a dream scenario for many reasons. It’s the two biggest teams, they’re coastal and there’s some real healthy competition going on there,” said Mark Maidment, New Era’s senior vice president of brand and marketing for North America. “In terms of that big resonance across the country and globally, it doesn’t really get bigger than the Yankees and the Dodgers.”
The Licensing Curveball
Both teams also have players with notable brand endorsements and followings. Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani boasts over 8.3 million followers on Instagram and has partnerships with fashion labels like Hugo Boss and sportswear brands such as New Balance. Yankees captain Aaron Judge is signed to the Jordan Brand and recently became a Ralph Lauren Fragrances ambassador in March 2024.
On the day following each team’s respective league championship series wins last weekend, StockX reported that searches for “Yankees” and “Dodgers” spiked 56 percent and 128 percent, respectively.
Alex Tantum, the 24-year-old baseball fan behind MLB.Fits, an Instagram account with over 123,000 followers that tracks the personal style of MLB players, believes that more casual fans will be invested in the World Series this year because of the big names playing and the coastal rivalry. Although Tantum doesn’t think player fashion within the MLB is on par with the NBA or NFL yet (and believes it challenging for players to dress up because the MLB season is significantly longer) he feels the league has been placing a larger emphasis on players’ style since starting his page in 2019.
“The red carpet for the All Star Game is something that I’ve noticed turns into a bigger deal each year,” said Tatum. “They have a red carpet correspondent who’s asking players about what they’re wearing and I feel like they’ve really leaned into that.”
But while this season’s World Series may provide an ideal moment for brands, taking advantage isn’t so simple. Without securing the right licences, brands can’t use team logos, and even if they do get permission, they face a lengthy approval process that isn’t exactly conducive to creating products on the fly.
New Era is a long-time MLB licensee that’s been a part of streetwear’s lexicon ever since Spike Lee asked the brand to craft him a custom red Yankees cap for the 1996 World Series. (Post-pandemic, its 59Fifty fitted cap became as coveted as limited-edition sneakers.) Maidment said it can take nine to 18 months to get its MLB collaborations on the market because of league and team approvals. Even restocking an existing collaboration takes time.
“Even if we’re one of the fastest in the industry, it’s more in weeks or a few months rather than being able to do it in a day,” said Maidment.
There are ways brands are getting around these challenges. Loafer label Blackstock & Weber’s collaboration with the Yankees and Mets, which released in July, took three years to hit the market because of league and team approvals. But on Monday, the brand announced it would restock the Yankees loafers as a pre-order.
“These licences can be very expensive but it’s because of the money you can make off them, especially during World Series time,” said founder Chris Echevarria, who declined to disclose the cost of the licence or sales figures for the collaboration. “The sheer media value of the collective shares, media coverage and reposts were astronomical. It’s still one of those things that people talk about or want us to bring back, which is the reason why we brought it back for the World Series.”
A Merch and Marketing Opportunity With Extra Innings
Lifestyle label New York or Nowhere released a co-branded New York Yankees merchandise collection earlier this year, but by the time the Yankees made the World Series, inventory from the collaboration had almost sold out. Founders Quincy Moore and Liz Eswein said they’re making the most of the moment by continuing to promote the project.
But to get around the lack of official inventory, the brand is also promoting a core collection of unlicensed products that feature Yankees-inspired colourways and leaning into social marketing by gifting the remaining inventory from the collaboration to alumni players and other notables attending the World Series. It’s also planning a World Series ticket giveaway via socials next week and will be posting on its social channels with imagery and iconography inspired by the Yankees during the games.
“The idea is to be the brand and the thing that people are thinking about and sharing when it comes to the World Series,” Moore said.
Mena of Menace said he’s noticed other local businesses in Los Angeles releasing merch this week that slides around the MLB’s trademarks. He’s familiar with the long process that comes with creating official merch from previously collaborating with sports teams like the Major League Soccer team LA Galaxy. Unofficial merchandise is a quick play, and he’s not worried about legal repercussions.
“I think it’s just in the spirit of streetwear, and it’s a fun challenge because when you look at the stuff that I’m making, I’m not using any of the logos for the shirts that we’re selling,” he said. ”So it’s a creative exercise for me as well.”
Even if brands can’t conceive a World Series play right away, Maidment at New Era said products tied to historic World Series matchups have a long lifespan. New Era’s fashion collaborators frequently request logos from past series even for new products. A showdown between the Yankees and Dodgers is likely to keep generating requests for months, he said.
New York or Nowhere is counting on it. It decided not to take pre-orders for its Yankees merch this week, counting on demand to carry on until it can restock. It opted to instead focus on the release of New York Knicks merch for the start of the NBA season.
“I think we’ve made a bet on ourselves that the demand [for our Yankees merch] will be retained and continue to grow with the lack of availability over the next few months,” said Moore.
