We cannot stress this even remotely enough. People are going absolutely batshit insane over Jarryd Hayne‘s push to become a fully fledged NFL star.
In fact, the level of attention he’s been able to stir up is practically unprecedented – not just for Australian sport, but for the NFL writ large.
Such is the hysteria surrounding the Hayne Plane, that the San Francisco 49ers store can barely keep up with the demand – his number 38 jersey is flying off the shelves at an absolutely ridiculous rate.
And this is for a player that still could be out of a job in a fortnight.
The Hayne jerseys are selling so well that the organisation has already made the call to Nike to ready them for mass production.
At the moment, Hayne’s jerseys are produced to order, with people either walking in off the street and waiting 40 minutes for the name “Hayne” and the number 38 to be pressed to the jersey, or purchasing them online, where the 49ers shop has Hayne as their lead item in the jersey section.
Hayne even has his name listed as its own option in the store’s drop down menu, putting him alongside Niners superstars Colin Kaepernick, Patrick Willis, Vernon Davis, Michael Crabtree, Anquan Boldin, and Torrey Smith.
It’s estimated that Hayne’s jersey has sold in the thousands, with demand at a level that the 49ers store staff have never seen before. A store staff member spoke of the hysteria thusly:
“I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s crazy. The jerseys are custom made and they are going off the shelves. We started making some custom jerseys for him about two weeks ago just prior to the first preseason game.
“But the media following and buzz around him have people interested. I’ve made about 10 or 15 custom jerseys myself.”
“It’s grown men, it’s women. Everyone wants a piece of him at the moment.”
“For now we’re making that many customisations that we’re trying to get ahead. But Nike are in the work of having his jersey mass produced to go on sale.”
“Of course the final signing would be the Chargers game in our house on the third of September. If he makes the squad then Nike will push the button on mass producing those jerseys. We have the jerseys and it won’t be long before we have personal custom items like playing cards and T-shirts.”
And again, we stress, all this for an unproven player with zero experience who had previously never played a game of organised football in his life?
Absolutely, well and truly, one hundred percent unheard of.
Jarryd Hayne is a freaking marketing dream.
Photo: Lachlan Cunningham via Getty Images.
