The NFL Is Standing Up for Pride with Rainbow Merch - Even for Teams That Haven't Shown Support

Not every pro football team cheers for the out and proud LGBTQ+ community, but the NFL's online shop is chock-full of Pride-themed merch that includes branding from every team in the league.

From white tees with team logos in rainbow colors, to sweatshirts and ball caps, and even Pride flags specific to various teams, the NFL shop is giving representation even while some corporations pull or downscale their support this June.

Outkick noted that there are more than 500 Pride items on offer at the site - though "some simply advocate pride in a particular team's accomplishments, such as championships," the site added.

That may not be a surprise since, Outkick went on to point out, not all of the 32 teams comprising the NFL have specifically celebrated Pride month and LGBTQ+ fans.

"To kick off gay pride month this year, 22 clubs immediately signaled their embrace of the LGBTQ+ community by posting about their support on X or Instagram or Facebook," the outlet detailed, with 10 teams holding back.

"But that number soon shrunk to nine teams, then eight and is now at five teams that have not joined the rest of the league in the gay pride month acknowledgment," the report specified. "The five teams are the Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals, Tennessee Titans, Kansas City Chiefs and Dallas Cowboys."

Even so, "teams that have opted out of the gay pride celebration on social media have somehow been included in the gay pride sale on NFLShop," the report noted, specifying Pride-themed Titans merch like a beach towel and a T-shirt.

The publication also cited the example of the Kansas City Chiefs, which "are owned by the deeply religious Hunt family. But there is a Kansas City pride shirt available on NFLShop for $31.99, there's a Chiefs pride logo shirt for $34.99 and there's also a one-sided Chiefs pride flag."

Addressing the conundrum of the NFL's official shop stocking Pride items emblazoned with the logos of teams like the Dallas Cowboys (which celebrated the birth of a player's daughter at the end of May, but ignored Pride month), Outkick speculated that "it is possible the individual teams have no say over the merchandise the NFL sells in its official online pro shop."

Of course, right-wing trolls have attacked teams that have made a point of honoring their queer fans (and players; even though no currently active players are out, it's mathematically impossible that there are not dozens of queer pro footballers among the leagues nearly 1,700 active players).

Earlier this month, BuzzFeed reported on homophobic trolls "losing their minds" over a social media post from the New England Patriots that showed a Jumbotron display of a Progress Pride Flag. At the team's Insta account, a legion of comments responded in lockstep with nearly identical messages reading "Happy veterans appreciation month 🇺🇸" or words and emojis very closely approximating that, as though both could not be true at the same time.

At the Patriots' X feed, the same post received considerably more bile, BuzzFeed relayed, before noting, "Defenders of the post, though, said the hatred exhibited in the comments only served to show exactly why Pride Month, which recognizes the LGBTQ+ community, is so important."

"We celebrate together 🏳️‍🌈," the Patriots (six-time Super Bowl champions) captioned the posts.

A mere 16 NFL players have come out in the history of the league, but only one of them was openly gay while playing in regular seasons. That trailblazer was Carl Nassib, who was with the Raiders when he came out in a casual video posted to Instagram in June of 2021. Nassib then played for the Buccaneers for a season, before retiring in 2023.

Naturally, Pride merch emblazoned with the logos from those teams is available.