Baseball fans can show support in afterlife
By Ben Klayman
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Die-hard baseball fans
will soon have a way to be close to their favorite teams in the afterlife.
Eternal Image Inc., which makes customized
caskets and urns, said on Friday it has signed a multiyear licensing
agreement with Major League Baseball that allows the company to reproduce
the names and logos of all 30 league teams on a new line of caskets and
urns.
"Fans incorporate baseball in nearly every
aspect of life," Eternal Image Chief Executive Clint Mytych said, adding
that the caskets could appeal to "a market that is just waiting for a way to
make team loyalty a final statement of a great passion in their lives."
The urns and caskets will go on sale next
year at prices from about $600 to $3,500, Mytych said.
"Our clubs receive these requests with some
frequency. We have really passionate fans," Major League Baseball
spokeswoman Susan Goodenow said, adding that the deal gives the sport's
governing body control of the tastefulness of the product.
Sports licensing accounted for an estimated
$14.5 billion in retail sales last year in the United States, up 1.9 percent
from 2004, according to the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers'
Association.
The idea of sports teams' logos and colors on
caskets is not new as fans of Argentina's most popular soccer team, Boca
Juniors, can buy their own coffins decorated in team colors and symbols for
$650 to $800, a small fortune for many of its working-class followers.
One of Boca's soccer field chants says: "The
day I die, I want my coffin painted blue and gold, like my heart."
© Reuters 2006. All Rights
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