Here’s some sports schwag with a good cause behind it. In Iran, drug use is a rampant problem among adolescent schoolchildren. Not only do the drugs harm the lives of Iranians, but the sale of drugs usually funds terrorism and other illegal activities. In order to keep kids away from drugs, the Cease-Fire project wanted to give children something better to do. They came up with the idea of giving out free custom soccer balls imprinted with anti-drug slogans on them. Every time a group of kids is playing soccer, they are kept away from drugs. Simple, inexpensive, and highly effective!

Scott Fujita may have a Super Bowl championship ring, but he doesn’t have the luxury schwag bag that Nike gave out to the rest of his endorsed teammates. Nike dropped Fujita after tape used to tighten his cleats covered up the Nike swoosh logo and voided his endorsement contract. While the rest of Fujita’s teammates were gallivanting around with about $5,000 worth of free schwag, Fujita was left empty-handed.

Here’s a direct quote from Scott’s Super Bowl diary:

Low-point of the day: Not getting a Nike schwag bag in my hotel room. All the guys who are endorsed by Nike got sweet Super Bowl schwag, with about $5,000 worth of merch, including some products from their ACG line, which I love for hiking and for outdoor use. I was endorsed by Nike for seven years, but they voided my contract (after several warnings) for “spatting” my cleats on game-days. Some of us spat, or put tape around our cleats, to keep them tight. Nike, apparently, doesn’t like that their precious Swoosh gets covered up. Oh well. Wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it weren’t for every teammate rubbing it in my face, parading around in all their cool new gear.

Personally, I’d still rather have the ring over promotional hiking gear.

Skateboarding isn’t exactly a “team” sport, but I’m a big fan of Andy Warhol, so I feel the need to post about these custom skate decks featuring works by the famous artist. There’s a “Pop Art” series, with Warhol’s iconic Marilyn and Mao portraits, plus the Velvet Underground banana and Campbell’s Soup can that helped make him famous, and the “Death and Disaster” series, featuring less well-known images of, well, death and disaster - think guns, knives, and skulls. Anyway, I like to see communication between the worlds of art and sports - it doesn’t happen nearly often enough.

[via StreetLevel]

Michael Jordan is a household name in basketball, and for good reason - his skill on the court was pretty much legendary. This commemorative telephone may seem like something of an anachronism in an age where fewer and fewer people bother with landlines, but die-hard Jordan fans might still want one. They’re numbered in a limited edition with the basketball player’s signature printed across the top, and when the “special” ringer is activated, the basketball part opens to reveal a court full of cheering, waving spectators and shots of Jordan flash across a scoreboard. Let’s see a cell phone do that. According to this site, they’re discontinued, so if you want your piece of Chicago Bulls (and telecommunications industry) history, act now…

Buffalo Bills star receiver Terrell Owens’ custom cereal, according to his official website, aspired to be “the new Flutie Flakes” when it was introduced this July. Lofty hopes for a newcomer to the promotional food game, but kids love celebrities with their breakfast, and the football-enhanced toasted honey nut o’s sold out ridiculously fast. Of course, the cereal’s release coincided with the launch of Owens’ reality television series “The TO Show” on VH1 and the start of the Bills sports camp at St. John Fisher College, so a few thousand boxes of “TO’s” didn’t stand a chance.

Promotional cereals are sort of the bane of parents everywhere, I think - they’re aggressively marketed to kids, have little to no nutritional content, and are shamelessly overpriced to reflect the perceived value of whatever star’s face is on the box. Still, the original Flutie Flakes transformed its creators - a three-employee operation called PLB Sports - into the major celebrity-endorsed product company it is today, and that same company proudly watched its “TO’s” sell out this summer. You have to admire that kind of marketing success.

[via Newsweek]

Professional sporting events are notorious for the amount of waste they create - the trash generated by concession stands alone is frightening to behold. Fortunately, forward-thinking sports teams are beginning to come around to the idea of giving back to their supporters in ways that truly benefit the community. Several New York teams, including the Giants, the Yankees, and the Mets, for example, have partnered with Rock & Wrap It Up! to collect the prepared food that was not sold by restaurants and vendors at their games and deliver it to soup kitchens in Newark and Manhattan. Rock & Wrap It Up!, an anti-poverty think tank staffed through volunteering, is able to provide over 13,000 meals a year through its partnership with the Giants alone - and with more than a dozen sports teams on board across the country, as well as working relationships with bands and event promoters, they are truly making a difference in the fight against hunger.

[image via NJ.com]

However, some people have decided that walking really fast constitutes a sport. Hence racewalking. It’s not just speed walking- it’s a competition. With elite competitors.

The funny thing is, racewalkers have the body of marathon runners. These guys and gals are training hard to be the best fast walking person ever.

So how do you become a racewalker? Well, there are books on the technique. But mostly you just need to know that one foot always needs to be on the ground, pedometers are a great help and don’t forget your water bottle!

After the whole Tiger Woods Car Crash in His Own Driveway fiasco, fans are starting to doubt Tiger’s sincerity. The website that previously proclaimed Tiger to be the next “messiah” is starting to doubt the likelihood he is anything but a mere mortal. A few blogger’s compared him to Clinton during the Lewinsky trial.

However, his golf merchandise is still sky high. After all, Tiger Woods is arguably the best known athlete in the world. With 14 Majors wins under his belt, he’s one of the best performing athletes as well. So despite his recent brush with the law, I’m still going to grab my golf tees and golf bag, hit the green and pretend like I’m as good as the best player on earth- Tiger Woods.

For more Tiger Woods entertainment check out PromoVideoChannel to see a video of Tiger walking on water.

Sky Mall does it again with these kooky Forest Faces. The first time I ever saw tree faces wasn’t in a catalog though, it was on the PA Turnpike. On the trees next to the ticket booth, each Steelers’ face was looking up at me complete with Jerseys tacked to the trees (I kid you not).

Being a Browns fan myself, it was a little hard to handle. However, I fell in love with the idea and found these buddies in a Sky Mall catalog on my last vacation.

Add your personal flair with customized hats, scarves and uniforms as well! Pretty soon there will be entire armies of sports-player-trees!