Washington Capitals fans finally have the chance to add Stanley Cup championship gear to their wardrobes, and they’re not letting the opportunity pass them by. A spokesman for Fanatics, the NHL’s official and exclusive provider of the locker-room T-shirts and hats that Alex Ovechkin and his teammates donned after they clinched the franchise’s first title last week, said the Capitals are on pace to set a record for Stanley Cup championship gear sold online by the retailer since it began tracking such data in the mid-2000s.
In the week since the Capitals won the title, the team set a record for e-commerce sales of Fanatics-branded Stanley Cup championship gear, breaking the post-clinch sales mark set by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016. SportsBusiness Daily reported that overall sales of Stanley Cup championship products are up 25 percent over last year, when the Penguins won their second consecutive title. Stanley Cup gear is just a little bit more timeless than Presidents’ Trophy T-shirts and hats commemorating Metropolitan Division titles; Ovechkin sported his championship hat as the team celebrated with the trophy throughout the town Saturday.
Fanatics also reported that the Capitals set a record for in-venue sales by an NHL team during the Stanley Cup finals. In addition to hosting Games 3 and 4, Capital One Arena was filled with fans — and the team store was open — during viewing parties for Games 1, 2 and 5. Fanatics does not operate the team store at Vegas’s T-Mobile Arena, but the expansion Golden Knights led the NHL in online sales on the Fanatics network during the regular season.
On Friday, Fanatics offered fans in the D.C. area the opportunity to purchase Stanley Cup championship gear via the Uber Eats app. The company sold out of several items and filled orders for more than six hours during the promotion. Fanatics also had two merchandise haulers selling gear at Tuesday’s championship parade along Constitution Avenue.
The Capitals’ post-championship sales boost ranks as one of the top-10 “hot markets” in Fanatics history across all sports, making Washington the first NHL team to crack that list. A Fanatics spokesman declined to reveal the complete top 10 but said the 2016 World Series champion Chicago Cubs and 2018 Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles rank first and second. A Fanatics spokesman said Capitals championship gear has been sold to fans in 115 countries, and the Wall Street Journal reported that Capitals championship merchandise sales are up 276 percent in Ovechkin’s native Russia over the same post-clinch period last year.
Greetings from World Cup media center in Moscow @dcsportsbog @Capitals pic.twitter.com/LWVZsx5sfV
— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) June 14, 2018
More on the Capitals: