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Strategy November 14, 2024

Fanatics Prints Texas Rangers Player Names on Dodgers World Series Championship Tees

It’s another in-the-spotlight printing mistake that sparked criticism on social media and embarrassment.

Key Takeaways

• DOH! Fanatics mistakenly printed Texas Rangers signatures on 2024 Dodgers World Series shirts.

• Overseas Error: The mistake was reportedly due to a mix-up at a U.K. facility, affecting limited quantities.

• Making It Right: Fanatics quickly acknowledged the mistake and promised to correct the issue.

The high-profile printing mistakes keep coming.

First, Mattel accidentally printed the URL of a pornographic website on the packaging of children’s dolls made to merchandise the anticipated hit movie Wicked.

Now, it’s been revealed that Fanatics is getting in on the flubs: The global sports merchandise retailer printed the signatures of players from the Texas Rangers on a limited number of 2024 World Series championship T-shirts.

That was a problem – namely, because the Los Angeles Dodgers were this year’s World Series champs. Yikes.

It appears to have been an honest mistake. The signatures were for players from the 2023 World Series-winning Texas Rangers squad. Fanatics had screen printed the names around a depiction of the Commissioner’s Trophy. The merchandiser did get the team name correct though: “2024 Champions Los Angeles Dodgers” was printed on the shirts.

Dodgers’ fans were fast to slam Fanatics on social media. Still, the company owned the mistake, saying in an X post that one of its locations in the United Kingdom made the goof that led to a limited quantity of the tees being printed with the wrong team’s player signatures.

“The issue was spotted and resolved quickly, but a few shirts did reach fans in Europe,” a Fanatics representative said on X. “We’re making it right by sending out the correct product to everyone impacted.”

When it comes to apparel, Fanatics and MLB had a rocky road this year. Fanatics, along with Nike, came in for ample criticism from players and fans alike for uniforms it created. Players criticized the wearables as ill-fitting and mismatched, among other issues. The league and Fanatics are vowing to improve the uniforms, but will not be able to fix everything until the 2026 season.

Back to the printing mishaps, though. The Fanatics slip-up and Mattel debacle highlight how failing to always execute quality assurance/double and triple checks before hitting print can lead to costly and embarrassing mistakes, even by massively successful global brands. The lesson for print and promo products professionals is clear: Proof properly before you print.