Dressed For Success!

By Dragonrider & TwoStarMako

​THL has had a long history, and merch being a part of that history is no exception! And much of the merch is as unique to THL as the players and teams and individuals that make THL such a unique community to be a part of in the first place. Let’s dive into more about some of the individual pieces of merch and the history or stories behind them.

One of the most unique and amazing things that THL has done with its merchandise, in my opinion, is tie unique merch to a month-long fundraiser every year in June for The Trevor Project. Every year for Pride Month in June all sales made during the entire month are added to the stream funds and funds raised through donations and totaled to be sent to The Trevor Project. According to TwoStarMako, “the Pride merch was actually part of the first iteration of what would become THL Pride. When I first thought of doing something for Pride, it was to do THL merch for Pride month and donate the proceeds.Some years THL Pride is bigger than others, but, at the very least, we always have a new merch design to garner whatever proceeds we can for The Trevor Project.” For more about THL’s Pride Month, check out this article! 
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Some team names were or have become THL “household” names and have earned their spot in the merch store. Mako describes the way these teams came to be on the store below:

“The THL team collections was part of the original idea of the merch store. When I started working on the merch store, the biggest issue was figuring out what we were going to actually sell. Outside of a few standard THL pieces, the idea to do multiple collections of longstanding THL teams made the cut.” 
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​​The current collections featured are F2L, APM, Justins, HSA, Dirty Mike and the Boys, and Dad Legend. “Originally, we were going to do waves of different teams with the ones on the shop being the first wave. The issue we had was that most of the teams sold less than expected, even though they were household THL names. HSA and F2L are the highest sellers and then there’s a pretty steep dropoff after those two.” THL is in the midst of a transition phase with its current makeup, so most players don’t have the same attachment to most of these teams that players of the past had. With more time, though, there may be other teams that become mainstays within THL and justify collections of their own. Make sure to check out each of their collections of merch, as each team has different products within the shop. What teams do you think should be added to have their own merch in the shop, are there any that come to mind that have either a track record worthy of merch or a story so good they shouldn’t be missed? 
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Like any great merch store, there is a variety of merch that can be purchased in the THL store. You’ll find various random trinkets and inside jokes specific to THL, like Carlbot, the loveable turtle that could never quite announce when THL went live on Twitch on time. Unlike other merch stores however, and just like real life, there is only ONE Ridiculous Hat. You read that right: there is a RidiculousHat hat in the shop, which you can find here. Before his work at Blizzard and outside of his podcasting, Hat was a mainstay within the THL sphere. He spent several years building up and fostering the THL scene as one of the leading Board Members​, and THL would surely not be the same without him. The hat featured in the store “was actually an April Fool’s joke merch item that we left,” according to Mako. “The goofy merch ideas, like the Ridiculous Hat or the CarlBot shirt, those were born out of just having fun with what we could do with the merch.I think [the Ridiculous Hat] sold decent too.”

Not all additions are winners though. There was a period of time where Mako would make a shirt for each championship team in each series. “It was an idea of having some extra incentive for winning your season. I created a pretty standard design that would allow reuse from series to series with the logo on the front and the player names on the back.” These lasted for a few seasons before being trailed out due to a significant lack of sales. “Pretty much the only people who were buying these were the actual people on the teams that won, and in most cases, they were not even buying them. There were multiple winning teams that sold zero shirts, not even to their own players.” After a few seasons, the championship line was shelved in favor of other designs and products. “We realized the work it took to create them did not justify the gain if the team’s own players were not even buying their own shirts.”
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​Finally, there are also history lessons to be found in the THL shop. Featured is a shirt with “Team Hearth League” written. “League,” however, is crossed out, with another word, “Legends,” crossed out underneath. At the bottom, “League” is written once again. THL originally stood for Team Hearth League. However, during one of the several esports revamps that the Hearthstone team did, part of the revamp was naming the top level of play a league. To avoid confusion and prevent possible trademark issues, the Hearthstone team and Blizzard began cracking down on using the name “League,” which forced THL to go by Team Hearth Legends for a short time. Even though the forced name change didn’t last long, it was long enough to create a lasting meme within the community about whether or not something was a league. THL has since been allowed to reuse the League nomenclature that many know and love to this day.
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Check out the shop today and let us know what kinds of other merch or logos you’d like to see in the shop!