University of Colorado says no to America-themed game day shirt over flag

The University of Colorado reportedly refused to participate in the sale of specially themed t-shirts for its game versus Texas Tech Saturday because the design included the American flag.

The vendor, Red Raider Outfitter, said the Texas Tech Red Raiders have a theme for every home game this football season. Saturday’s theme was to be “Celebrate America” and incorporated each school’s logo with the American flag. A portion of the proceeds from the sale would have gone to charity.

The owner of Red Raider Outfitter, Stephen Spiegelberg, told KCBD the design process began months ago, and while Texas Tech approved the design immediately, the University of Colorado refused. What’s more, the university still refused even after adjustments were made to the design. 

“We don‘t do many designs with flag elements combined with our marks. We’d prefer not to participate in this,” read a message from the university reviewed by KCBD NewsChannel 11. 

“At that point, we pressed a little bit more and we were told they won’t be licensing a product that had an American flag on it,” Spiegelberg said. 

After news of the story broke, fans of Red Raider Outfitter quickly pointed out online the University of Colorado readily sells merchandise with the American flag and its logo directly on its own website, calling into question the university’s reasoning. 

When the university asked the outfitter to redesign the shirt without the American flag, Spiegelberg pushed back. 

“At this point with our fanbase, we decided we would not be selling any type of Colorado merchandise in the store with the logo,” he said. “We refuse to do that because Colorado would receive financial benefit from those shirts. And we don’t think that anybody has the right to limit the use of the American flag in this great nation.” 

Ultimately, the university’s refusal meant that there would be no sale of an officially themed shirt for the game. 

However, Spiegelberg decided to make the usual donation despite potentially not having the merchandise sales to back it up. 

“We‘ve already decided that we’re making our normal donation to Danny Koch, which is a war memorial here in Lubbock. It’ll be used to add a West Texas Purple Heart to his memorial. We‘re pleased to say that we’re continuing to make that donation regardless of Colorado’s intent to limit our ability to celebrate. We will continue to keep celebrating here.” 

Spiegelberg told KCBD his company donated $3,500 to Danny Koch and the Lubbock veterans organization behind the Monument of Courage, which supports veterans with PTSD and veterans’ memorials. It still plans to give $3,000 each to a national veterans support organization and the Colorado office of Veterans Affairs, totaling nearly $10,000 donated on behalf of the store’s staff and its fans. 

Late last week, a spokesperson for the University of Colorado released the following statement: 

“We get requests to use our marks and often decline for any number of reasons. In this case, the decision was unrelated to the ‘Celebrate America’ theme,” the statement read. “Our standards are consistently applied and are based on widely accepted licensing and trademark best practices used by national and global brands.”