When the National Football League’s regular season kicks off this Thursday, millions of fans will wear their favorite teams’ jerseys to show their support. Not all jerseys are created equal, however.
While many jerseys are official, licensed NFL memorabilia, others represent the ugly side of one of China’s many wrongdoings: the counterfeit goods industry. Licensed jerseys represent a mutually beneficial free trade relationship, with the official jerseys produced by American companies in China. Yet the counterfeits present a major issue that President Trump needs to address — because the Chinese government is complicit in the scam.
Here’s what’s happening.
Right now, there are a few ways to buy a jersey. You can buy an officially-licensed NFL jersey from a retail store, retail website, or the NFL’s official shop. Alternatively, you could go on a massive Chinese online store and buy the counterfeited version for much less.
On AliExpress, for example, there are authentic-looking Brady jerseys for sale in the $25 to $30 range. They are misleadingly listed as if they are “Nike Navy Super Bowl LIII Bound Game Jersey” which sells for $89.99 on the NFL’s official shop. And yet, somehow, AliExpress has a seller offering them for a third of the price with 185,111 jerseys available in stock — with free shipping to boot. A customer might easily purchase the fake jersey thinking it was the legitimate NFL edition, only to be ripped off.
Meanwhile, the website AliBaba has extremely low quality Brady jerseys for sale that don’t even pretend to be officially licensed NFL merchandise. One listing titled, “Hot Selling Embroidery Custom 12 Tom Brady American Football Jersey Cheap” offers Brady jerseys in the $15 to $17 range, offering discounts for those who purchase more than 100 jerseys. Why one would need 100 Tom Brady jerseys other than to re-sell them illegally on the black market is unclear.
And many of these goods do end up being re-sold unlawfully. In 2018, prior to the Super Bowl, more than $15 million worth of fake merchandise was seized in a joint operation with the NFL, ICE, the FBI, Customs and Border Protection and the Minneapolis Police Department.
Sports merchandise is only a fraction of the illegal counterfeiting industry as well. Counterfeit goods account for nearly $500 billion annually in trade, and Chinese companies are the biggest offender, producing 80% of these counterfeit goods. Meanwhile, Americans are the biggest consumer, buying about 60% to 80%.
This is a serious problem we can’t ignore.
The sale of counterfeit merchandise industry is not a victimless crime. First, it hurts companies — many of which do hire some American workers — by ripping off their products, passing them off as legitimate, and stealing their business. Consumers are also hurt when they get worse quality products, and even products that are potentially dangerous.
As Northern Ireland’s official government website points out, the counterfeit industry includes childrens’ toys with serious choking hazards, car parts with high rates of failure, cheap sports jerseys which lack flame resistance, and fake alcohol which contains antifreeze and nail polish, among other things.
To make matters worse, the counterfeit goods industry funds other far worse illegal activities. Not only are counterfeit goods often made with forced child labor and cost the United States about 750,000 jobs, but the profits are sometimes used to fund terrorism and human trafficking.
President Trump should address this serious issue when he meets with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping later this month. Counterfeiting is hurting people in China, the United States and Europe, and the Chinese government is complicit. There is no reason this crime should continue at our expense.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance sports writer and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
