This week The New York Times covered on the front page the relatively recent phenomenon of sports teams giving everybody that comes in the door a free t-shirt of the same color. It basically puts the whole crowd in uniform.

The Winnipeg Jets were the first team to do this type of thing when 20 years ago they created their “white out” in the stands, encouraging all fans to be dressed in white.

It isn’t clear whether the shirt promotions help win games but at 20K shirts a pop it is a winning formula in the eyes of screenprinters and folks selling shirts.