The Rose Bowl is still five days away, but the marketing maestros at adidas and/or ESPN must know something the TCU-leaning oddsmakers don't: The ESPN's Rose Bowl shop is already selling a T-shirt that preemptively proclaims Wisconsin the champion of Saturday's game. That might be all right if TCU fans were allowed to play Kreskin with their apparel dollar, too, but there's no corresponding merchandise prematurely anointing the Horned Frogs. In fact, of the 116 separate items currently displayed in the Rose, Fiesta, Orange, Sugar and BCS Championship stores, not one is commemorating a victory that hasn't occurred – except the Wisconsin Rose Bowl tee. I don't know how well they're selling, but $20 seems like a steep price for a box of hubris.
Not that anyone else waits to make this stuff – on the contrary, Academy Sports stores in Alabama have already promised to reopen immediately following an Auburn win to unload Tiger championship gear no doubt waiting in the warehouse as we speak. Alabama fans last year went as far as marketing bumper stickers proclaiming the Crimson Tide's 13th national title weeks before they'd actually won it. On the bright side, should actual events render the preemptive championship gear obsolete, at least there's always plenty of room alongside those old "Buffalo Bills World Champions" T-shirts on the global goodwill market.
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Hat tip: 11 Warriors.
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Hilarie Burton Kelly Carlson Sara Foster Natassia Malthe Victoria Silvstedt
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