🪙 The Truth Behind the Most Unique Tradition in Sports

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A (not so fun) political fact for you: passing an amendment in Florida requires 60% of the vote.

However, that amendment only received 57.78% support when it passed in 2006, and now my latest YouTube video lacks a nice full-circle moment.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: The Truth Behind the Most Unique Tradition in Sports

📉 Biggest Loser: The Most Impressive Sports Science That No One Knows About

🏆 Winner’s Circle: How a Statue Saved the Baltimore Ravens $200M

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🗞 The Big Story

The Boston Celtics’ first championship helped create one of the most successful businesses in all of sports, but it also led to one of basketball’s most unique traditions.

Background: Back in 1892, New England Flag and Banner was founded in Woburn, Massachusetts, and began producing cotton banners for teams like:

• 1903 World Series champion Red Sox

• 1939 Stanley Cup champion Bruins

However, it wasn’t until 1957, when the Celtics won their first of 11 titles over a 12-year span, that New England Flag and Banner started making banners for the city’s basketball team, too.

However, after a Boston championship dry spell in the 1990s and early 2000s threatened to put the company out of business, a man named Ned Flynn stepped in to buy the company from its original owners in 2006.

Banner Process: Luckily for Flynn, the city’s luck turned around, and just two years later, his team of 20 seamstresses, 10 cutters, and 15 layout people were handmaking the Celtics’ 17th Championship banner.

Flynn says that the process for making one of these banners involves 125 yards of nylon fabric, which costs around $800. The rest of the expenses come from labor, which he says is 66% of the company’s cost of goods sold.

Special Tradition: Flynn and his team started working on 12 replica banners at 5 a.m. the morning after the Celtics’ most recent championship. However, he says the official 10-by-15-sized one that hangs in the rafters can be turned around in as quick as 24 hours and ends up costing around $3,000.

Today, Flynn says New England Flag and Banner makes around 10,000 flags and banners per year for over 1,900 college and pro teams, which he estimates makes up around 90% of the hand-sewn, fabric-on-fabric banners and flags market.

But my favorite part of this story is that while making his first banner for the Celtics in 2008, Flynn had a “lucky penny” sewed into the corner—a tradition he has carried over into the Celtics’ 18th banner as well.

📉 Biggest Loser

This product claims to do something that almost seems impossible, so why aren’t more people talking about it?

Background: It’s no secret that the NFL is constantly testing new products to reduce concussions, trying everything from Q-Collars to Guardian Caps, but what if there was a more discrete way to reduce the impact of a hit on an athlete’s head?

Well, that’s what 2nd Skull attempted to create all the way back in 2010.

Founder Federico Olivares had the idea after seeing one of his kids get hurt after falling off a bike, even with a helmet on, and wondering if there was an extra layer of production he could create for all athletes.

He settled on a fairly normal-looking skull cap made with a thin layer of lightweight XRD fabric.

The Science: This fabric is unique because it’s made of molecules that are soft and flexible when resting but can instantaneously harden during sudden impact.

In fact, in 2017, the company received a $100,000 grant from the NFL to continue developing this product, which impressively is only 2 millimeters thick and weighs less than 2.4 ounces.

This means that the cap is barely noticeable when worn underneath a helmet, but it still provides up to 20% better impact protection against force to the head.

Failed Partnership: 2nd Skull’s impressive resume eventually landed them a partnership with Guardian Cap back in 2021, which seemed like the company’s pathway to being worn by every NFL athlete.

However, as of today, there’s no mention of 2nd Skull anywhere on Guardian’s website - in fact, Guardian now seems to offer a similar, competing product with helmet manufacturer Xenith instead.

As of last year, 2nd Skull still seemed to be partnered with a Jets’ practice squad player, but honestly, I think more people need to hear about these things.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

This statue saved the Baltimore Ravens close to $200 million, but not for the reason you might think.

Naming Rights: When M&T Bank Stadium opened in 1998, it was actually called Ravens Stadium at Camden Yards. But then, in 1999, an internet service provider called PSINet bought the naming rights for 20 years and $104M or $5.2 million per year.

However, just three years later, PSINet went out of business - leaving it called Ravens Stadium during the 2002 season.

Fan Petition: That same year, legendary Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas died of a heart attack, leading over 50,000 fans to sign a petition requesting that the stadium be renamed Johnny Unitas Memorial Stadium.

Given that the stadium didn’t currently have a name, it seemed like a perfect solution to everyone… except for the Ravens' ownership, which claimed that “they need revenue from a naming sponsor to field a competitive team.”

Other Options: Many critics pointed out that not only do other teams manage to get by without selling the naming rights to their stadiums, but the Ravens could have sold the rights to a charitable organization for $1 to name the stadium after Unitas and written off the lost value to pay less in taxes.

But instead, the team decided to sell the rights to M&T Bank Stadium in 2003 for a deal worth $75 million over 15 years. To date, the team has earned an estimated $195 million from its naming rights deals with the bank.

Compromise: Now, as a nod to Unitas, the team named the plaza in front of the main entrance after him and erected this 13-foot-tall statue that fans rub on the way in for good luck.

However, by building it, the Ravens were able to please their fans while still earning a hundred-million-dollar naming rights deal.

⏱ In Other News

• The NFL’s most misunderstood star

• He’s probably losing money by playing in the NFL… seriously

• Trump wins, college athletes lose

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