The Shirt sales reported this year by the Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore were consistent with those of previous seasons, despite the football team's losing record.
Junior Jason Gott, president of The Shirt Project 2008, said that sales through the week before the Duke game projected a total of more than 120,000 shirts sold.
"We were very happy with the sales. We had set a goal for ourselves of 120,000 shirts, and, obviously, we met that goal," Gott said.
He said sales of The Shirt have totaled at least 90,000 in each of the 18 years of the project.
Keith Kirkpatrick, director of retail operations, also said the fact that the majority of this year's home games were late in the season did not negatively affect sales.
Gott said many factors have contributed to the successful sale of The Shirt.
"We definitely had a vision of selling as many shirts as possible in the spring and summer before the football season even started, because that's a good way to build momentum," Gott said. "The more people that you have wearing The Shirt at the first football game, the more other people are going to want to buy it."
The name "The Shirt" started to build a reputation, Gott said.
"That's something that really ties people to campus, and a lot of people like the fact that you can only get it on campus," he said. "It's something that you can take with you."
The Shirt's project organization team is currently working on the 19th shirt for next year's football season, but plans are still in the early stages, Gott said. The team hopes to sell between 120,000 to 130,000 units of next year's The Shirt.
"Because of the consistency in sales over the last few years, I think it's really something that we need to expect of ourselves to reach the same kind of success," he said.
Gott hopes to see more people wearing The Shirt during home games next season, and he wants to see more people attend the unveiling of The Shirt at the Bookstore on the weekend of the Blue-Gold football game.
"We're always trying to increase The Shirt's appeal and get the students and the alumni more engaged with it," he said. "I think that the bar has been set to the minimum of what the Notre Dame community expects from The Shirt Project, and it's going to be the goal, from now on, to raise that bar."
