T-shirts and Tariffs

Hey Gotham Players,

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We're living through a period of time unlike any preceding for Gotham Soccer. Since our beginning, we have provided colored t-shirts for our small sided divisions to make our games look organized and help teams tell who's on which team. We've always viewed it as part of our advertising expense, and I personally get excited every time I see a Gotham shirt "out in the wild," whether that's at a store, on the sidewalk, or at a professional game. And while I hold the shirts dear, our prices haven't kept up with the increasing costs of shirts, with the percentage of our team dues going to t-shirts rising from where they were 10 years ago at 5% to an average of 8% over all divisions now, and 12% in some divisions that have shorter seasons. Normally, we see twenty-five cent increases per shirt and would adjust our pricing a little to compensate every several years, but recent events leave us unable to keep up with the price changes, with the only knowledge being they are going up very quickly at this point. After wrestling with the question, I've made the decision to stop including a set of shirts as part of our team dues. To continue meeting the objective of the shirts, we are going to be having a more robust solution of pinnies available at fields for when team colors get murky starting this Summer Season. Also, each season we will offer the shirts as an add-on that you can continue to get from us by reaching out and we'll pass through the current cost of them to you. I suspect it'll be very similar to what you might find at big box stores, but at the quality you expect from us.

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And for those of you who ask, "but wait, if the shirts aren't in the dues anymore, shouldn't the price go down?" I'll say that's a fair question. The cost of shirts isn't the only thing going absolutely bonkers right now making things incredibly difficult to navigate. In the past few months we've had 5 different venues change their pricing, with the price changes being startling, with a range of 20%, 50%, 80%, 115%, and 300% increases. And while the 300% increase is a change of facility with the old being below market rate and the new being above, the rest are places we've been playing for 8-20 years now so the price changes are jarring. This is like your mortgage going from $2,000 a month to $4,000, with one venue attempting to do so retroactively even. And while I don't believe we can pass along these kind of price increases to you, I am having to make some decisions that allow the games to continue as I know how important our weekly run is to everybody. In 2025, Gotham is doing more with fewer people, have cut out software expenses, and are having a keen eye on all expenses, with one unfortunately being the shirts.

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Thank you for your understanding, and I will see you out at fields.

Thanks,

Roger