Yankees player Todd Frazier inspires 'Thumbs Down' T-shirts
500 Level Founder Brett Williamson on Friday said his collaboration with MLB players and artists have helped his company flourish.
The inspiration for the “Thumbs Down” T-shirt all started on September 11th, after Yankees third baseman Todd Frazier hit a home run against the Tampa Bay Rays at Citi Field, where the cameras captured Mets fan Gary Dunaier giving a thumbs down in response.
“We partner with Todd Frazier. Todd Frazier was instrumental along with our artists on coming up with this great design and promoting it both on his website and 500 Level. So it was really [a] collaboration with the player, which was a dream come true,” he told FOX Business’ Liz Claman on “Countdown to the Closing Bell.”
The “Thumbs Down” T-shirt retails for $21.99 on the 500 Level website. The sports apparel company is also selling T-shirts for other players, including the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Enrique Hernandez, who wants all the proceeds from his shirt to go to Puerto Rico, for all the people affected by recent hurricanes.
“Enrique has been an amazing partner…When you get to partner with a guy like Enrique Hernandez who hits three home runs last night, I mean how great is that?” Williamson said.
After hitting three home runs during Thursday’s game, which catapulted the Dodgers to their first World Series since 1988, Hernandez talked about partnering with 500 Level.
“Even for my teammates to be wearing the T-shirts that I teamed up [with the 500 Level for] to raise money for people in Puerto Rico, just to see them with the shirts on, it means the world to me,” Hernandez said.
Williamson discussed how his company is able to create so many uniquely designed T-shirts.
“We partner with over 700 different artists so obviously we have great diversity in our designs. We circulate and we get designs from a myriad of artists across the world. They are generally topical or current plays that have occurred in games either the night before or the day before so that’s really the genesis,” he said.
Williamson also elaborated on the potential for sales of “Thumbs Down” t-shirts.
“We print on demand, so we don’t carry inventory, so we’ll be running ads and hopefully catching the wave as the Yankees win another game tonight,” he said.