So much Chicago Cubs championship gear was sold in the first 15 hours after the team won its first title in 108 years, that postgame merchandise records are already being shattered.
"We had our best month ever today," said Bob Bowman, president of business and media for Major League Baseball. Bowman elaborated that more Cubs gear was sold from when the team won the title to 4 p.m. ET on Thursday than the previous record for gear sold in the league's best month of sales -- November 2010, after the San Francisco Giants won the World Series.
Sources with knowledge of the sales coming into baseball's official online store and Fanatics, which runs the store and has its own site, said that Cubs gear is on pace to do $30 million in online retail sales alone in the first 24 hours, which would be roughly eight times what fans spent on those official site for gear of last year's Kansas City Royals championship team.
Factoring in sales from the local market, sources say the Cubs' first 24 hours of sales should approach $70 million in retail sales, which would make it the hottest postgame championship market of all time. One industry source told ESPN that the best-selling post-championship merchandise sales were the Denver Broncos after winning Super Bowl 50 this past season and the Cleveland Cavaliers after winning the NBA Finals in June.
Fans in Chicago were craving Cubs championship gear after the team won on Wednesday night to the point that they were willing to pay a big markup to buy gear immediately. Championship hats, which sold online for $32, were being sold in Wrigleyville for $50, while $28 T-shirts were being peddled for $40.