RIO DE JANEIRO — Matheus Gustavo arrived at work at a cap store in Rio de Janeiro wearing a black New York Yankees cap. In the displays around them, about three out of four caps promoted that baseball team. Gustavo had years of wearing a Yankees cap, he said, “but he never knew the real reason for NY.”
When told that the Yankees were a baseball team, the 23-year-old seemed unimpressed. “Oh,” he replied. “Here it’s more soccer.”
In Brazil, baseball confuses. Regardless of that, the Yankees cap is perhaps the most popular headwear in the country.
It is ubiquitous on the beaches of Rio and in the bars of Sao Paulo. It adorned the heads of some right-wing protesters who were demanding a military coup to oust the leftist President. And in February, he was hanging from a tree in an illegal gold mine deep in the Amazon jungle.
But don’t expect many Brazilians to understand what the cap means.
“Is it football? Or is it a brand?” asked Carlos Henrique, 20, who was selling Yankees hats from a metal rack on Rio’s Ipanema beach. Regardless of whether it was one or the other, it was the top seller.
More than any other sports paraphernalia, the Yankees cap has become its own fashion trend, unrelated to the sport or the team it represents.
Elevated by starring roles in hip-hop videos, celebrity endorsements, and collaborations with Gucci and Supreme, the cap has gone global.
For many in places like Brazil, China, and Nigeria, the NY interlocking badge is simply a classic bit of America, a status symbol, or a generic, perhaps chic, emblem of the West.
“The logo is super fancy and, I think, sophisticated,” said Natalia Monsores, 40, as she looked at Yankees hats at a store owned by New Era, the Buffalo, New York company that makes the official hats. “It’s the symbol of the brand, isn’t it? New Era,” she replied when asked what the logo stood for. “You’re sending a signal: ‘I’m wearing something quality.'”
Artur Regen oversees Brazil for New Era, the largest cap seller and the only one licensed by Major League Baseball in the country, he said. “98 percent of Brazilians don’t know it’s a baseball team,” he said. “New York is great and they want to be associated with it.”
New Era sells Yankees caps in over 125 countries. Since entering Brazil in 2010, the company has added more than 2,000 partner stores and 150 franchise stores, Regen said. In the last two years, sales have doubled.
Four employees at two stores in Rio said 9 out of 10 caps sold were Yankees caps.
While New Era’s business is booming in Brazil, the Yankees don’t benefit much; the 30 Major League Baseball teams share the revenue from most official apparel sales. But most of the Yankees hats sold in Brazil — Regen estimates 9 out of 10 — are imitations anyway.
At a bustling street market in downtown Rio de Janeiro, six different hat vendors said Yankees hats were their best-selling item, selling for between $5 and $8 each. In New Era stores, they cost up to $48.
Some street vendors bought the caps from nearby wholesalers, while others said they ordered them in bulk from out-of-state factories.
Regen said New Era, which imports its hats from Asia, has worked with authorities to destroy millions of counterfeits in Brazil over the past decade, but “you close one factory and open two more.”
By: JACK NICAS
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6656062, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-04-11 22:40:07
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