BYU fans have spoken and chosen a 2015 gameday shirt.
Utah T-shirt design company Stately Type hosted a gameday T-shirt contest for all BYU students via Instagram. Every year BYU sells gameday shirts for fans to wear to athletic events in a show of solidarity.
Three different T-shirt styles were created and labeled as shirts A, B and C, and each shirt received more than 600 votes. Shirt “B” came away with the win with a whopping 784 votes. The winning shirt features a hand-lettered “Go Cougs” in the shape of a football in white and gray on a navy blue crewneck. Design company Stately Type specializes in artistically designer city, state and country themed T-shirts.
“We chose to include students in the decision because a number of students have purchased the gameday shirt over the last seven years and wanted to get their thoughts on it,” said David Almodova, BYU’s assistant athletic director.
Hundreds of students were involved and waited with excitement as the votes on each shirt came in. “I feel that just like anything, if you get people to invest in something, or give their opinion in this case, they feel more involved and are more willing to be committed to it,” said BYU basketball player Corbin Kaufusi. “So this T-shirt contest seems like a great opportunity for students to be part of the football experience even if they never before had a strong connection to the football program.”
Gameday shirt contests are a common practice and contests are offered at several universities around the country. Stately Type suggested the contest to BYU, and the athletics department supported it, Almodova said. But this wasn’t the first contest of its kind at BYU. “We did a voting on gameday shirts a couple of years ago on our social media platforms, and we heard from a lot of fans,” Almodova said.
BYU Athletics plans to repeat the contest again because of the positive feedback from the fans. “We will evaluate this process and adjust accordingly in the future,” Almodova said. “We want fan input and find this is one great way to do it.”
