Kentucky's "Perfect Season" Marketing Blitz Didn't Work Out

The thing with talking about (let alone selling merchandise hyping) a 40-0 season is that perfect seasons very rarely work out. It's exceedingly more likely that you'll lose, then everyone will point out the fact that you sold t-shirts, and you'll become a punchline. Like those shirts over there!

When UK lost to Michigan State on Tuesday, it rendered the university's "pursuit of perfection" shirts worthless, except as curios. But a funny thing happened for a separate, fan-created shirt operation: opposing fans want them really badly.

The Dagger spoke to David Son, who along with a group of Kentucky fans, have been selling 40-0 t-shirts over the last month to fund a trip to Dallas for the Final Four. Son said they sold a few hundred shirts, but once Kentucky lost, business exploded.

"It's absolutely mind-boggling. We're selling more T-shirts than we were before.

"I think they're Louisville fans, I think they're Michigan State fans, I think they're North Carolina fans. People love to hate the evil empire. If you're not a UK fan and you're not from the state of Kentucky, you hate Kentucky. And if you're a Kentucky fan, you love being hated."

Shut up, Kentucky.

So, obviously, next year we will see fans of every even remotely good team selling perfect season shirts, then finally turning a profit when they lose. Because college sports aren't about pride. They're about schadenfreude.

[ The Dagger]