Ryan Fagan tells the story of how a 1980 advertisement in the Sporting News changed the New Era hat company forever:

“I remember my father, he says, ‘You know, we get these calls all day long from consumers asking to buy caps. I don’t get it. Why did they want to wear those caps? This is part of a uniform.’” 

Chris Koch, who started working at the New Era manufacturing plant after school at age 16, in 1976, pauses and laughs. 

“And my mother, who was a funny lady, was like, ‘Well, who cares why they want wear it? Why don’t we put an ad in The Sporting News and see if there’s any business there? Maybe we’ll sell a couple hundred caps. Why not? Let’s see what happens.’”

SportingNews.com

Two weeks later they were getting thousands of requests a day at $12.50 a pop. Today they list for around $40.